


The Tea Merchant

by cthchewy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Abyss (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Espionage, Fantastic Racism, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Gore, No beta our typos haunt Dimitri like Glenn's sassy ghost, Original Character(s), Past Child Abuse, Politics, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn, Worldbuilding, everybody spying on everybody else, merchant!Claude, teatime courtship, there are way too many factions on this game board
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-01 06:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 71,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21427696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthchewy/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: Rejected as the Riegan heir by the Alliance Roundtable, Claude must find other means to establish a power base in Fódlan with which to eventually achieve his goal of peace and open borders.  He becomes a merchant, trading in tea, spices, and secrets.(An exploration/celebration of cultural exchange through tea and espionage.  Oh, and dumb boys falling in love.)
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 374
Kudos: 714





	1. Prologue

**1179, Verdant Rain Moon**

The heads of the five great noble houses of the Alliance Roundtable convened in a secret meeting in Derdriu Castle’s war room. Unlike the regular Roundtable meetings which were held in the Great Hall, no lesser lords or junior members of houses were allowed to listen in. Nothing was to be recorded. Until a decision was made, nothing that was said in this room could be revealed outside.

The topic, as it had been for the past few moons, was the succession crisis of House Riegan, the preeminent house of the Leicester Alliance since its founding. House Riegan had been in a steady state of decline for many years, with fewer and fewer crested children born each year. When the previous heir Godfrey von Riegan unexpectedly passed, he left only a single crestless daughter. Born out of wedlock and without the Crest of Riegan to prove her lineage, there was little hope she could carry on the line.

If they took the word of Godfrey’s maid that she truly was his daughter, they would have to wait more than a decade for her to come of age, and even longer to see if the Crest re-emerged in the next generation or the one thereafter. Or they could pass the leadership of the Alliance onto a more robust family. If the leadership of the Alliance was to be passed on, and House Riegan give up its seat on the Roundtable, should it go to Holst of House Goneril, a stronger but less willing candidate, or the young Lorenz of House Gloucester, weaker but more willing? House Goneril was militarily stronger, and held in the greatest esteem for defending all of Fódlan against the barbaric Almyran horde, but House Gloucester was more central in location and thus had more connections to the other nations of Fódlan.

Regardless of who won that vote, the repercussions of such a decision would shake the political landscape of the Alliance to its core. There would be unrest; there would be areas of weakness brought – or dragged – into the light. The Adrestian Empire’s ever-greedy hands would grasp at Ordelia and its surrounding territories more brazenly than before, if House Riegan were to fall. The troubles could even spread to Faerghus and back. They, too, were faced with a succession crisis, with most of House Blaiddyd having been murdered some years past, and constant plots to undermine the authority of the young prince before he could reach coronation. House Riegan had once been a branch of House Blaiddyd, and they maintained some relations even after the Crescent Moon War and formal separation. Without House Riegan’s support, would Blaiddyd’s sole heir also fall? Would there be war for the throne of Faerghus?

Negotiations had slowly plodded on with no end in sight, but today the aging but still shrewd Duke Riegan pulled out one last gamble.

Today, in this closed meeting, there sat a sixth person, a young man.

He had the darker looks of a border lad, but the same green eyes as Duke Riegan. To Lords Goneril and Edmund especially, it was apparent that he had some amount of Almyran blood in him, as many commoners in the eastern reaches of their territories had. This impurity, however, was never spoken of in public among the nobility, even if it wasn’t exactly unheard of in their ranks either.

But it was one thing for House Daphnel to have kidnapped an Almyran warrior princess almost a century ago. It was entirely another for the head of the Leicester Alliance to propose that this border lad become their next leader; to put him right beside the pureblood Blaiddyd and Hresvelg heirs and ask the people to turn a blind eye.

The young man stuck his hand into yet another Crest Analyzer, the third this afternoon. In the morning session, he had only done it once before the lords, with the one from the Riegan estate, which Count Gloucester did not trust. So he brought his own after the recess, and asked Count Ordelia to do the same. The Riegans were not known for their mages, he said. They would not know if a Crest Analyzer had been tampered with.

For the third time this afternoon, the Crest Analyzer glowed brightly and brought up the crescent moon image of a minor Crest of Riegan. A true heir had been found. House Riegan yet lived.

“Well?” the old duke asked of Count Gloucester, “Are you satisfied?”

It was no secret that the Count was eyeing the leadership of the Alliance for himself and his heirs. He could never be satisfied with such a result, but he didn’t get to such a position by baring his personal hostilities so openly. He slowly nodded. “Yes, that is proof enough. I acknowledge this boy as the son of your daughter.”

Duke Riegan was about to call the meeting adjourned, to go ahead with his plan to legitimate his grandson and have done with it all. But as he opened his mouth to speak, Count Gloucester cut in once more. “However,” he said sharply, “I propose that blood relations and a Crest are not enough to name him next in line for the title of Sovereign Duke.”

Duke Riegan’s eyes narrowed. “House Riegan has always led the Alliance, and you’ve acknowledged him yourself. This is the son of my daughter. By that alone, he is of the proper breeding.”

“Yes, but _where_ is she? _Where_ is Lady Tiana that she cannot be here to vouch for her own son!”

“She has chosen the life of a warrior, not a duchess. Her letters are all right there on the table before you, in her handwriting, stamped with her signet ring. We’ve been over this, and we’ve proven they are not forgeries.”

“That’s true, Your Grace, that’s very true. But there is one possibility you’ve not entertained, perhaps because you are a father who wants only the best for his children. We are all fathers as well,” he said, gesturing to the other lords, “and we cannot let our hopes blind us to this very real threat.”

“What are you implying?” Duke Riegan’s hands were clenched into fists. His grandson wisely remained silent and still as the tides turned against him.

Lord Gloucester was quite a theatrical man, and he took this moment to look each of the other lords in the eye before speaking. “I’m merely pointing out that Lady Tiana has not been heard from in years. If she were happily married, even to a commoner, she would be here with us now.”

Lord Edmund interjected then. “A kidnapping, you’re saying? Forced marriage?”

Sighing, Lord Gloucester nodded. “It cannot be ruled out. Not until we see Lady Tiana _and_ her husband here before us, to prove she was not coerced into writing these letters.” He looked to Lord Goneril, who he knew loved his young daughter more than anything. “We all know the value of Crests, and it is not wrong to covet them, but what precedent would it set to place Crests above the welfare of our children? If we allowed _anyone_ who flashed a Crest to join our noble houses, it would be painting a target on our children. Any bandit could force his way into our families if we so lowered our standards! I hate to be so crass, but it must be said. If an Almyran snuck across the border and captured a lady, should House Goneril let the children of this savage _rapist_ represent them in the Roundtable?”

There was silence as the lords thought on this issue. All of them, save Lord Gloucester himself, had daughters. They could imagine very well what their enemies would do if they knew the Alliance lords prized Crests so much they would even prop up foreign agents born of rape as the heads of their noble houses. They had been at war with Almyra on and off for centuries, and both sides had captured many spoils of war. If the Almyrans knew they could weaponize that…

Duke Riegan’s teeth were clenched. He said nothing, though his anger was palpable. Beside him, his grandson also frowned. The young man spoke up for the first time since his introduction.

“My mother is not a captive. It was her choice to elope and give up any claim to the Riegan title. If my word means anything to you at all, let me assure you she is happy. As her son, I would not stand for it otherwise. I will swear it, on my honor, on my Crest, on the goddess, on anything you would have me swear upon.”

It was improper for him to have spoken, and Lord Gloucester sniffed in disdain. The other lords, however, heard the sincerity in his rushed words, and the distress.

“I believe you, boy,” said Lord Edmund, who was known for his fairness. “And I will not oppose your taking of the Riegan name, in time. But I’m sorry, Your Grace,” he said to Duke Riegan, “I cannot in good conscience vote for your grandson to so suddenly inherit the title of Sovereign Duke. I cast my vote, that this boy be given a chance to earn his legitimation through deeds proving his loyalty to the Alliance, but that for the time being House Riegan must step down, unless Lady Tiana testifies before us.”

“Aye, that is my vote as well,” Lord Goneril agreed, gruff as ever. “Plenty of good border lads on our side, but they earn their posts. I’ll not risk having an Almyran lead us, Crest or no.”

Lord Ordelia, scholarly and frail, gazed at the Crest Analyzer he had brought to the meeting. His eyes were shadowed and distant, as if recalling some unknown horror. “Perhaps that is better,” he said quietly. “Perhaps it is a step forward, to prize our children’s happiness over their Crests. We must not become like the noble houses of the Kingdom or the Empire, who force marriages to produce crested children and disown the crestless. Our bloodlines may fade sooner than theirs, but at least we will go with dignity.”

With all the other great lords against him, that was the end of the old Duke’s proposal. They named Holst first in line, Lorenz second, subject to change. The details would be written and signed at the next official Roundtable. Some vague mentions would be made for the possibility of House Riegan reclaiming its title at a later date, should suitable heirs be found.

It had gotten late. The lords filed out, escorted by the castle’s servants, leaving Duke Riegan and his grandson alone in the war room. They sat in silence for a somber moment until the young man asked, “What should I do now, grandfather?”

“Nothing, boy. Or everything. It’s your choice.”

His grandfather’s words were exceedingly unhelpful, so he asked in a different manner. “What would I have to do to prove loyalty to the Alliance?”

At this, the old man scoffed. “Squire yourself to Holst Goneril, I suppose. Next time a skirmish breaks out, you’ll take that as an excuse to restart the war. Kill or displace every Almyran along the eastern stretch of Fódlan’s Throat, and the Alliance will be yours. Could you do it?”

“That’s… a bit much, don’t you think. I’d _much_ prefer peace.”

“Of course you would. And as much as I dislike Almyra, I’d never force a son to march against his father.” He sighed and shook his head as he continued. “But Fódlan’s history is steeped in blood, Claude. They won’t accept you otherwise. The most I can ask of you now is to go out there, learn about this land. Perhaps if you find a good Fódlish wife and have plenty of children by her, they can revive our House.”

Claude hummed in contemplation. He got up to draw back the curtains on the windows, and when he looked out, it was evening. The sun still set quite late at the end of summer, so the sky was streaked in pinks and oranges. The window overlooked Derdriu’s bustling port, and the first twinkling stars were visible in the dark veil slowly descending from high above the sea.

He smiled at the sight. It was his first since greeting his grandfather and their servants at breakfast, and the first to reach his eyes since arriving in Fódlan one month prior. Everything from then until now had been endless speech coaching and etiquette lessons to pass him off as Fódlan-born for this meeting, and it had all busted in the end.

Good riddance. If they had succeeded, he would have had to sit through six more months of even more stuffy lessons on ballroom dancing, proper Adrestian opera seating, or how dropping a knife at the dinner table was an invitation to duel in Faerghus or something of the like. The puffy, frilly Leicester nobleman’s fashion didn’t suit him anyway, Claude thought. It wasn’t too great of a loss since he always had back up plans for his backup plans. Besides, he’d always loved a long game.

“Leicester is a Merchant Republic, isn’t it? Like Morfis. It’s been able to stand equal to the other countries of Fódlan, despite having less land and soldiers, because of the wealth of the merchant class.”

“Obviously, boy. What are you getting at?”

When Claude turned around, the soft glow lingered in his eyes. “I think I’d like to try my hand at being a merchant. Really get to know the Alliance middle class,” he said with a grin.

“What would you sell?”

“Tea. Spices. Silks. You know, the things everyone thinks are from Morfis, but actually make their way _there_ from Almyra? Have you _seen _the tea prices lately? They’re absurd! The Alliance could make _such _a profit by cutting out the middle man, and I’ll still be able to make my way to Garreg Mach, as you intended, to influence the politics there.”

Duke Riegan hadn’t known his grandson for long, but he already knew he was a headache. Stubborn, unable to be persuaded once he’d sunk his teeth into something. Willful in the pursuit of grander dreams no one else could seem to see. Just like his mother. The old man sighed and shook his head. He wondered if he would ever understand those secret dreams.

“You’ll want a ship then, and some caravans?”

“That would be _great_, thank you!”

“Hmph. You’d wheedle them out of your father instead, if I refused.”

“That’s true, but thank you nonetheless,” Claude said. He bent to embrace his grandfather lightly around the shoulders, and then the two got up to proceed to the dining hall for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was just an excuse for me to stare at the map for way too long and do world building stuff. 
> 
> ...And to have cute boys fall in love over tea.
> 
> ORZ
> 
> [Edit 4/8: Changed Claude's mom's name]


	2. Sweet Apple Blend

**1180, Harpstring Moon**

The three house leaders arrived at Garreg Mach Monastery during the first week of the Great Tree Moon, about a week before all the other students started trickling into the dorms. But while the other students had time to relax and settle in, the house leaders had spent that time being coached and tested in their extra duties to make sure they would be ready to support their classmates once the school year officially started in the last week of the month.

It was during one of these extra training sessions that they met the mercenary they would come to know as Professor Byleth, and everything after that had been even more hectic. Dimitri was glad to have such a renowned fighter in charge of his class, but the Professor had never taught before, so there was plenty of prep work to do.

Dimitri wanted to be the sort of man who gave his all in everything he did. He wanted to be a good house leader, so of course he had tried his best to help the Professor prepare materials for lessons. Then there was the social aspect of attending an academy – greeting everyone properly, getting to know classmates, managing who he sparred with or ate lunch with… It took a lot of work, and building relationships was never something Dimitri was naturally skilled at. Admittedly, there was maybe too much on his plate. Sooner or later, something would get dropped.

Today, however, would not be that day.

There was a birthday chart in the Blue Lions classroom. Annette had pinned it there after interrogating everyone for their birthdays and compiling the information. She got the idea from her newfound rival, Lysithea, who had complained about Hilda spending an entire afternoon decorating the Golden Deer birthday chart rather than studying. Annette’s own name was at the top of the list, and the date was fast approaching.

“Get her flowers,” Dedue said.

They were the only two students in the classroom at the moment, and it must have been strange for Dedue to see him glaring holes into the innocent poster. Granted, it wasn’t the strangest thing Dedue had seen him do, but Dimitri still flushed.

“But you’re getting her flowers, aren’t you? And they’re ones that you’re growing yourself. It means a lot more that way, while I would just buy a bouquet.” He shook his head. Dimitri, as house leader if not just as a friend, had to give each member of his house a birthday gift, and mere store-bought flowers would not do. Propriety demanded it be something personal. “I think I’ll head to the gate, to see if the merchants have anything new for sale. Mercedes’ and Sylvain’s birthdays will be coming up as well.”

Dedue shrugged and said, simply, “I’ll be in the greenhouse.”

Dimitri didn’t have high hopes as he made his way down to the gate. Ideally, he would make one shopping trip for all three birthdays and have that out of the way so he could spend more weekends training and studying, but that seemed difficult with the different personalities of his housemates.

“Annette likes books,” he mumbled to himself. She also appreciated sweets, and Mercedes liked to make and eat sweets too, but baked goods wouldn’t keep. Perhaps he could find candies or interesting ingredients. And Sylvain… well, he could always just give Sylvain a weapon or a whetstone, but that would be taken as a rebuke. Sylvain definitely earned all the scoldings he received for skipping out on training to flirt, but perhaps not for his birthday.

No one stopped to chat with Dimitri along the way, though he smiled and waved to some familiar faces. At the small marketplace just outside the gates of the monastery, he spotted Lorenz perusing the gifts stall.

“Good morning, Lorenz. Find anything interesting?”

“Ah, Prince Dimitri! A very good morning to you as well,” Lorenz said in his usual flamboyant way, with a practiced flip of his bright yellow cape that clashed with his very purple hair. It was certainly eye-catching, to say the least. “Unfortunately, the selection today is a bit sparse. I saw Professor Byleth leaving here earlier with an armful of gifts, and it seems they’re running low on tea as well. Alas.”

Glancing at the display, it did appear rather sad. All that remained were a few tins of common tea blends, a chess set, and an ornamental knife. Sylvain already had a nice chess set in his possession. None of the gifts would be suitable for his friends.

“You’re right,” Dimitri said. “It looks like I’ll have to go into one of the nearby towns.”

“I was just thinking the same, and it so happens that I overhead some members of my house mention the opening of a ‘unique’ tea shop, as they put it. It’s only an hour or so ride away. Would you like to accompany me?”

It seemed like a good opportunity to get to know his fellow house leader, so Dimitri smiled and politely accepted. “Yes, of course. I would love to.”

They went to the stable for horses, then signed out with the gatekeeper, who cheerfully reminded them to be back before curfew when the gates would close. The ride down the mountain path into town was pleasant. The weather was beautiful this time of year, and Dimitri found himself surprisingly enjoying Lorenz’s company as well.

When they had first met, Edelgard formed an immediate dislike for Lorenz. Not one to mince words, she dismissed him as a “foolish, self-absorbed dandy”, and that seemed to be the impression many others had of him as well. Dimitri had refused to form an opinion so quickly, and he was glad to see that there was more to Lorenz than his dramatics.

Lorenz had loudly proclaimed that he would lead the Deer to glorious victory, only for them to perform quite poorly in the mock battle. Still, Dimitri was glad to see Lorenz hadn’t taken his defeat too badly, and in fact he seemed even more fired up after the fact. From what Dimitri had seen, his lance skills were… adequate. That just meant there was room for improvement! Lorenz was learning magic as well, which was admirable and would make him a formidable opponent in the long run. Dimitri only wished he had the head for magical theory.

They spoke of many things during the ride. It was the first time they had spent so much time in each other’s company. Most of the conversation was filled with things of no consequence. The weather, lance practice, the gifts they were looking for. However, it was when the topic made its way to systems of governance that Dimitri’s opinion of Lorenz really began to shift.

There was a common opinion in Garreg Mach that the Golden Deer were always the weakest house, and it had its ties in the stereotype that Alliance nobles were obsequious, fawning bootlickers who only ever won through deceit. It was said that their house leaders were weak in battle because they were soft and pampered. They sat on their wealth and bought mercenaries to do their fighting. The words were far uglier than Dimitri would use, but there was some basis in truth, in that the last time the Golden Deer won the Battle of the Eagle and Lion was six years ago, when Holst Goneril was house leader.

He’d heard similar things in Faerghus about Leicester’s chaotic government. But to hear Lorenz speak of it, the Alliance model was a beautiful thing. The Roundtable was messy and they squabbled, but the lords kept each other accountable. The nobility existed to protect commoners, he said, and Dimitri wholeheartedly agreed. But the way commoners could rise to power and purchase enough land to earn a noble title or marry into one, if they wished to ascend to such responsibility, was the true future of governance, Lorenz proclaimed. He said it in a way that insulted the Kingdom and Empire as backwards, but it was an interesting concept regardless.

“Most recently, we approved the formation of House Acheron,” he said with a nod. “Why, even House Edmund, which now sits at the Roundtable, was once from common roots. They were sheep herders who later made a small fortune as wool merchants, and they have no family Crest, you see, but Margrave Edmund is no less fierce than any of the other great lords. He’s the only lord in all of Fódlan to have fought off invaders from Sreng and Almyra both.”

Lorenz was regarding him with an expectant look in his eyes, so Dimitri responded as best he could. He had limited knowledge of the Alliance, with how he had spent most of his youth looking north and west, to the Empire and to Duscur. “That’s very interesting,” he said, and paused to consider how to put his thoughts into words. “But...”

“Oh, I’m so delighted to finally meet someone who agrees with me on the role of nobility!” Lorenz began gushing before he could finish. “And the commoners, too. You won’t believe how many of them accuse me of the most heinous beliefs!”

“But Lorenz, that’s not at all how I’ve heard you present your case at the academy.”

“It’s such a relief that– What?”

“I’ve never seen you get far enough to mention your admiration of Margrave Edmund and his success despite the lack of a Crest. They always walk out on you before then, or the topic derails. It can be alienating when you wax poetic about Crests and bloodlines.”

“That’s preposterous! They are the very foundation of civilized society!”

“I wonder, is that really so? A Crest is a burden as well as a blessing. Among the Blue Lions, there are some who see it as nothing but a burden. I would bet that’s true for the Golden Deer as well, so since it’s such a polarizing topic, perhaps you should start with Margrave Edmund.”

“But that part comes _after_ I’ve explained the noble ideal.”

“No, no, I really think you should lead with that. Half your house is common-born. It might be best to start with the inspirational bit.”

“The ideal of the crested noble _is_ the inspirational bit.”

Dimitri fought back the urge to sigh. He never thought he would be the one giving someone advice on how to speak to classmates. “Well, speaking as a less scholarly man than yourself, I found the ‘through effort, you can rise above any circumstances of your birth’ bit to resonate better. It has meaning to nobles and commoners alike. You can’t grow a Crest through effort, but in the Alliance, at least, you can certainly become a margrave without one.”

“...Oh.” Lorenz sniffed, perhaps to hide a frown. “I shall take that under advisement.”

Chuckling, Dimitri reached over to slap Lorenz on the back. “Don’t worry about it. Look, we’ve arrived.”

Lorenz had led them on the path east from Garreg Mach, to a settlement at the head of the Airmid river fittingly called Airmid Falls. Dimitri had never been this way, though he could appreciate its strategic location as a trading post. It was located at the southwestern tip of Alliance territory, at the edge of the newly consolidated lands of House Acheron, which bordered Gloucester to the north, and it was because of this that Lorenz had begun explaining Acheron’s ascension, and their conversation moved on from there.

Goods from all over the known world came in from port cities at the mouth of the Airmid and moved west, and from Derdriu they came through in long lines of caravans that regularly crossed the Great Bridge of Myrddin into the Empire, but some continued further west into the Oghma mountains, bound for Garreg Mach. Airmid Falls was a natural resting point for such travelers. There was a fertile valley, fresh water, and plenty of inns calling out to the weary to stop for the night before the mountain paths became too steep and treacherous for wagons to easily cross.

Once there, they dismounted and tied their horses at the edge of the market district. Most of the town was taken up by the large central marketplace, with houses and farms surrounding it. The smell of fresh bread and shouts of people hawking their wares drew Dimitri forward through the crowd. He saw a few off-duty Knights of Seiros among the shoppers, and some young ladies giggled as they passed. Certainly in a place as lively as this, he could find what he was looking for.

“Ah, there it is.” Lorenz pointed to a building a short distance away.

It was in the outer ring of businesses where the atmosphere was calmer. Not many of the businesses here were shops offering direct sales, but rather offices and warehouses. Some of the larger mercantile companies and guilds had their own outposts here, with dorms for the workers and stables for the horses and flying mounts. There were covered wagons parked outside most of the establishments.

The building in question was one such outpost, flanked on one side by a dorm and stables. Lorenz mentioned that it had once been owned by the family of his housemate Raphael, who had just recently sold it, along with all the Kirsten family’s caravans (and indeed the whole business, employees and all), to some wealthy men from Derdriu.

Once upon a time, it might have been a building like any other, white and brown, showing its age through chipping paint. Now it clearly stood out from the rest. It had been remodeled very recently, and along with a fresh coat of paint, the doors and windows were now bordered by beautiful tiles arranged in geometric patterns, gleaming blue and green and bronze. It was like nothing Dimitri had ever seen, but Lorenz didn’t pause, so perhaps a design like this was common in parts of the Alliance.

The sign that hung above the door read “Verdant Rain Teas & Spices”. The front door was open, which they took as in invitation.

Inside, the shop’s main room was slightly disorganized. There was an elegant rosewood shelf that stretched along the entire back wall, filled top to bottom with large glass canisters of teas and spices. There was a counter in front of the shelf, and upon it a scale, abacus, and ledger. In front of that, two small tables and four chairs had been set out, perhaps so customers could sit and sample the wares. Long display tables ran along the sides of the shop, with small pre-packaged bags and tins laid on top.

As for the proprietors, there was only an elderly woman and a younger man hard at work. The old woman was packing wrapped parcels into crates, and the man was stacking them into different piles, perhaps according to shipment. The man had just hefted a filled crate onto his shoulders, and upon seeing Dimitri and Lorenz enter, he visibly startled and began to stammer.

“W-welcome, sirs. I’m so sorry to tell ya – uh, _inform_ you that the boss is out. He’ll be back s-shortly… I think?” He attempted to bow, remembered his crate, and ended up making a few jerky nods.

Dimitri was quick to reassure him. “That’s all right, don’t let us keep you from your work. We can always come back at a later time.”

“Or perhaps you could help us make some purchases when you are free?” Lorenz asked.

“Sorry, sirs. I was shipping crops and lumber until recently. Don’t know much about these luxury goods yet. Excuse me.” He ducked out to load the wagon outside, eyes lowered and flushing up to his neck. It reminded Dimitri of Ashe, who sometimes wasn’t the most comfortable when surrounded by nobility despite having been adopted into a well-off family.

Lorenz glanced toward the elderly woman then. “Would you be able to assist us, madam?”

She smiled at them pleasantly. “Oh, a peasant like me won’t be of any help to you, sirs, but please feel free to look around. As Luca said, the young master will be back soon. He’s a flighty one, always off somewhere or other.”

“_Excuse_ me, madam, but that is in no way a proper thing to say to an employer,” Lorenz began to lecture. Before he could finish with something along the lines of ‘Regardless of your opinion of him, he is your social better,’ Dimitri placed a hand on his companion’s arm.

“My friend means… he sounds like quite a character.”

She smiled knowingly in return. “Of course, dear.”

But before they could begin looking around, they heard shouting coming from outside, and the sound of heavy wingbeats.

“Ah. That’ll be him,” she said, and calmly went back to her work.

It was all very curious, and Dimitri couldn’t help himself from stepping back through the open door. As soon as he was outside, his eyes widened at the sight. He’d arrived just in time to witness a wyvern descending much too close to the entrance.

“Whoa, there!” the rider called, pulling the reins just in time. Glare from the sun prevented Dimitri from getting a good look at him. The wyvern’s claws thumped to the ground inches away from where Dimitri stood frozen. It roared in protest and let out one final wingbeat that swirled the dust around them.

Luca had loaded his crate into a wagon, which had also nearly been hit by the wyvern. A few more workers had scurried out from the other buildings, some shouting and others laughing. A portly bearded man harrumphed and called out to the rider, “By the goddess, I’ve told you time and again to land closer to the stables!”

“Sorry, sorry,” the rider said. His voice was lilting and mirthful. There was barely any space for him to dismount, so when he slid off he landed right in front of Dimitri, so close it was as if they had been leaning into each other for an embrace. Dimitri heard a gasp, which could have come from either of them. The man’s eyes had widened in surprise as well, but only for a second.

In the next moment, he smiled.

Even more than before, Dimitri felt himself rooted to the spot, entranced as he gazed at this stranger. He had only reacted to someone this way once before, as a child, for a little girl who danced so beautifully. Those memories and all his childhood dreams were now buried in ashes and blood. He hadn’t known he could still feel this way, as if something new, something wondrous had come into his life. But this man… there was something about him.

His appearance was absolutely striking. His hair was windswept, carrying with it the lingering scent of far-off lands. In his smile there lived a million secrets; in his eyes a million stars.

In that fleeting moment, Dimitri thought that here was a man whose secrets one could spend a lifetime unraveling.

“Too much money and not enough sense, this boy!” The bearded man whacked his boss upside the head. “Quit starin’ at the customers and tame your wyvern!”

The moment was broken and Dimitri flushed, coming back to his senses.

“Ow! Come on now, Karst. Precious is just a baby, aren’t you, sweet girl?” He patted the snout of his beast before handing over the reins for it to be led away. Then he turned to his other employees and said, “Good news, everyone. I’ve secured an escort for us across the bridge. We’re taking this business to the Empire. Tonight, we feast!”

Cheers erupted among the gathered men and women. A bag of coin was tossed to Luca, who was closest. They began to divide up tasks, all excited for the celebration to come. As that was happening, Lorenz approached the man, for which Dimitri was grateful. He didn’t want to make an even bigger fool of himself after the staring debacle.

“Ahem. You are the owner of this establishment, I presume?”

“Oh, yes. So sorry to keep you waiting, sirs.”

“I am Lorenz _Hellman_ Gloucester, and my companion here is none other than Pr–”

“You may call me Dimitri!” he cut in. Dimitri bowed awkwardly and shot an apologetic look at Lorenz, who was frowning at not being able to wow the peasants with the fact that they were in the presence of a prince.

The merchant seemed amused. He cocked his head to the side, but didn’t miss a beat. “In that case, you may call me Claude.”

“Just the one name?” Lorenz asked.

“Just the one.”

“Ah,” Lorenz said. “I see.”

Dimitri, however, did not see. His confusion must have been obvious to Claude, who pointed at himself and said, still grinning, “Illegitimate. I can’t officially inherit an estate, but I do have financial backing. But that’s not what you gentlemen are here for, is it? Please, come inside.”

Once back in the shop, he noticed the old woman had left. It was only the three of them. Lorenz began chatting with Claude about his wares. Sources, blends, brewing times… Dimitri wasn’t much of a tea connoisseur, so much of it went over his head. He liked tea, but did the temperature of the water really matter so much? He instead chose to look at the samples, but even then it was overwhelming.

He tried to remember what flavor of tea Annette preferred – was it apple or berry? He must have gotten lost in thought again because suddenly Claude was beside him, reaching out a finger to playfully poke at his furrowed brow.

“You can smell them, you know. The samples.”

“That’s, um, I’m not good. With delicate things.” Dimitri felt his palms begin to sweat, and was glad it wasn’t noticeable under his gauntlets. He berated himself for getting so flustered over a pretty face and tried to mentally summon Lorenz for help. Unfortunately, Lorenz was by the counter, very intently sampling a cup of freshly brewed tea.

Claude found all of this amusing, of course. His lips were still curled in that damnable smile. He glanced down at the teas Dimitri had been inspecting and took up one of the tins. Slowly, he unscrewed the lid and set it aside. One hand made its way to Dimitri’s elbow. The other lifted the tea to Dimitri’s nose.

“Sweet apple blend.”

“It smells delicious,” Dimitri said, cursing the hoarseness of his voice. “But it’s different, somehow?”

“Sweet apple is a very common tea, just tea leaves and dried apple pieces, usually. I thought it was a bit boring, so I played around with it, added some elderflowers and a pinch of cinnamon to give it more depth.”

“Do you… make all the blends yourself?”

“In this shop? Yes. I guess you could say it’s a hobby of mine. The main business is imports and shipping the raw goods across the country, but I’ve always been fascinated by alchemy. Tea blending isn’t exactly magic, though.” Claude chuckled sheepishly. “Well, are you looking for something in particular?”

“Not in particular, but for gifts… Ah, I’d like a small tin of this sweet apple blend, please, and do you have spices… for baking?”

“Hmm… no spices in particular?”

Dimitri huffed. “Honestly, I know absolutely nothing about baking.”

Claude’s eyes lit up at the prospect of a challenge. “Let me see what I can do.”

The two of them headed toward the counter, where Lorenz was looking very amused. He raised one elegant violet brow. Dimitri felt his cheeks heat up at the prospect of Lorenz having seen all of… that.

“I have decided! One hundred grams of the rose blend, and fifty of the Leicester Cortania.”

“Of course. I’ll have that for you right away.”

They left the shop bearing two packages each. As Dimitri stepped out, he felt Claude’s eyes on his back and told himself that it was nothing. He would not make it a habit of visiting this tea shop on free days when there were so many more productive things to do, like training. Like continuing the search for his parents’ murderer. He had neither the time nor the heart for dalliances.

“An interesting fellow,” Lorenz said on their way back, and thankfully nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri and Lorenz have achieved C Support.


	3. Cardamom Cookies

Annette loved the tea. She loved the cookies that Mercedes made for her, and all the flowers she got, even the half-crushed one that Felix grumpily shoved at her on top of “a whetstone, for your axe, hmph”. It was nice to have a reason to get together outside of class. Dimitri was glad that he’d made the right choice in his gift, and he was content also to return to focusing on his schoolwork.

If only his fellow students would allow him to!

It seemed that at least once a day, whether in the dining hall or the dorms or the courtyard, someone would mention tea. Had it always been such a common topic? Dimitri honestly had not noticed before, but now mentions of tea had him thinking of green eyes and teasing smiles. He wondered who Claude was, where he had come from, and what that scent had been in his hair. It was a terrible distraction. He hoped that no one would notice his strange new reaction to tea, of all things. Lorenz knew the cause of it, but while he shot the occasional smug looks at Dimitri, he seemed to keep that knowledge to himself.

Dimitri found himself spending more time in the library, where it was quiet. He spent his evenings there, pulling out any and all records he could find from around the time of the Tragedy of Duscur, looking for suspicious correspondences, troop movements, missing cargo, anything at all that could hold even the smallest hint. Access to these records was one of the reasons he chose to attend the academy in the first place. He’d already had his maiden battle before the school year began, and could have proceeded directly into a position of knighthood until his coronation, but that would have meant staying in the Kingdom when he’d already exhausted all the records he could find in Fhirdiad. There were suspicious gaps, and places where information could have been wiped. This pointed at there being conspirators within the Kingdom. It was no longer safe for Dimitri to ask around in his home country. People were still spreading rumors about how his grief-driven madness had never subsided; how he had been bewitched by the man from Duscur at his side to believe the murderers of his family over his own people. Duscur was a mystery that he had to solve, or he would never be free of the ghosts and darkness of the past.

A week passed from the date of his excursion. More of the Golden Deer students went into town after hearing their house leader recommend the tea. Raphael led them there since he was going anyway, “To see our old employees. They’re like family to me!” Lorenz looked at Dimitri like he expected he would tag along, but Dimitri bid them a safe journey and went to the training grounds. He broke two training lances.

Another week passed. Lorenz went back to the tea shop. He asked Dimitri to accompany him again, to which Dimitri replied that he unfortunately had extra weeding duty. This was true, though he neglected to tell Lorenz that he could have chosen any day of the week to do his chores. Hilda, who he had learned could sniff out drama like a bloodhound, immediately pounced on the opportunity to take his place.

Dimitri went to do his chores with a sense of dread. Dedue followed him and gave him more patience than he deserved. He could have been in the garden or the kitchens on his free day, doing what he loved, but instead he went along with Dimitri’s… _whatever_ was going on. His nonsense, he supposed.

Dimitri plucked many dandelions with more force than necessary. He crushed most of the stems and therefore had to dig his fingers into the soil to get the roots out.

“Dandelions are edible, aren’t they? I’ve heard tea can be made from the roasted roots,” he mumbled.

“Your Highness, are you thinking about eating the weeds again?”

“I’m thinking about making tea out of them.”

This was far from the strangest thing Dedue had heard him say. He merely blinked slowly and replied, “Please do not do that, either.”

They worked in companionable silence the rest of the morning, and trained all afternoon after a quick break for lunch. It was only after they had washed up and were on their way to the dining hall for supper that Dedue spoke up suddenly.

“If I may, Your Highness, I think you should confront whatever is bothering you. It’s unlike you to run from things.”

“Please do not worry about me. It’s just stress, that’s all.”

Dedue was unconvinced. “It’s my duty to worry about you,” he said.

Dimitri knew that his retainer would not be letting this go. If there was anyone he could confide in, it was Dedue, so even if his thoughts were unclear even to himself, he tried to express them nonetheless. He looked to the sky and to his feet, and to anywhere other than Dedue’s patient face as he recounted his experience.

“That day, when I went into town with Lorenz, I met someone. I had… such a strange reaction to him, I don’t even know how to describe it.”

“A good reaction or a bad one?”

“Both? I don’t know him at all. We hardly spoke, and I don’t know what to make of him, but I suppose I _wanted_ to know more, so much that I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind… But it’s a distraction. Our families deserve justice. That’s what I must focus on.”

“I see.” Dedue nodded solemnly. “And I want that as well, Your Highness, but I believe you’re being too hard on yourself. Princes and kings are also men, and have desires. No one will fault you for seeking companionship.”

“Is that what I want from him?” Dimitri wondered, “Companionship?”

“Regardless, your focus hasn’t been at its best lately. Avoiding the problem hasn’t been working. Perhaps you need to, as they say, ‘get it out of your system’. Go see him again.”

Dedue was always wise and gentle no matter how erratically Dimitri behaved. He had been there through the fits and the madness, and had comforted him in their shared pain. Even now, for something as frivolous as this, he stood by Dimitri’s side to guide him. Dimitri did not deserve such a good friend, and he did not have a poet’s tongue to express his gratitude. He could only be honest. “Thank you, Dedue. You are truly the best of us.”

The dining hall was busy when they arrived, though luckily most of the evening rush had passed. From the line, Dimitri spotted some of the usual crew gathered at the corner table Ingrid preferred. She said it kept her from being interrupted during meals so she could better enjoy the food. Sylvain said she liked hiding away because it kept her from being noticed by potential suitors. Ingrid wasn’t there at the moment, but Sylvain was, along with Mercedes, Annette, and Ashe. Surprisingly, they were joined by Hilda and Lorenz, who had returned from their trip and were probably showing off their new finds.

Dimitri and Dedue set down their trays in the middle of the conversation.

“Oh, everyone knows prices at the monastery are jacked up!” Hilda said. “The merchants have to climb all the way up a mountain to get to us, and they know the Church is loaded. Of course they’d want a little extra for the trouble.”

Mercedes thought on it for a moment. “Hmm. I haven’t noticed much of a difference in prices from what I’m used to…”

“Yeah!” Annette agreed. “A small tin of sweet apple blend was always about five hundred in Fhirdiad.”

Hilda’s brows rose in surprise. “Wow. I mean, I wouldn’t say tea is cheap in the Alliance, but we certainly don’t pay _that _much. That’s robbery!”

“Ugh. Maybe it’s just Fhirdiad being so far to the north. All the roads freeze over and we hardly get any trade in the winter. What about you guys?” Annette directed the question at Sylvain and Ashe.

Sylvain held up his hands. “Hey, don’t look at me. If you think Fhirdiad is north, then Gautier is perpetually stuck in the asscrack of winter.”

Ashe chuckled. “Gaspard is thankfully not… that. But even so, I would say the prices are the same as Fhirdiad.”

“Import taxes, I presume,” Lorenz said. “Just crossing the border will raise prices by twenty percent or so. And Hilda is correct about the monastery. There are no taxes here, but the merchants know it’s populated by the scions of all the wealthiest families, many who are willing to pay more to receive the same luxuries they enjoyed at home.”

“That’s very good to know,” Mercedes said. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Hilda, Lorenz. It would greatly benefit the less wealthy students to know they should head in the direction of the Alliance for better prices on these products. We should take advantage of the travel permits provided to us as students to travel and learn about other parts of the world.”

Dimitri found the conversation interesting, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think two of the most prominent members of the Golden Deer would be hanging around a known Blue Lions gathering spot just to help them with their shopping. And he was absolutely right.

As soon as the previous topic was finished, Hilda whipped around to face Dimitri. “Ohoho! Well, well, _well_. The man of the hour has arrived!”

Dimitri swallowed a mouthful of meat pie. It smelled savory but tasted like ashes. “I’ve been here for quite some time,” he said, and shoveled in another spoonful.

“Eh,” she said, “that’s not important. What’s _important_ is that a little birdie told me you have an _admirer_.”

“Oh?” Sylvain leaned forward, hands on his chin. His other housemates were surprised too. Annette suppressed a soft gasp, and Ashe bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying anything.

“Of the _amorous_ sort!” Hilda continued.

“Ohhhh?” Sylvain leaned further. “Is that why you’ve been so distracted? Do tell, Your Highness!”

“There’s nothing to tell – wait. _I _have an admirer?”

Hilda squealed into her cupped palms. “Ahh, it’s too cute! I can’t stand it!”

“Congratulations. It seems your interest is reciprocated,” Lorenz said. “Claude was ever so disappointed you were not with us. He said you left last time without ever having told him your favorite tea. It means he has been thinking of you. That’s all we came to say, really. I bid you all a good evening.” He stood up and bowed at the waist.

Hilda got up to leave with him. She leaned around Lorenz to give him a thumbs up. “Your merchant boy’s pretty hot. Good taste, Dimitri. I approve.”

“Hilda, are you just saying that because of his very Goneril style? Getting homesick?”

“Uh, yeah? Don’t tell me you haven’t admired your share of rugged wyvern riders from the eastern mountains, all sweaty with their axes and golden skin glinting in the sun.”

“Eww, sweat.”

As their conversation faded into the distance, Dimitri returned his attention to the food and resolutely kept his gaze on his plate.

“I had no idea _that _was your type,” Sylvain said.

“Neither did I,” Dimitri replied into his potatoes. “Though I think he is a bowman. He has an archer’s callouses.”

“Of course that’s what you would notice. You and Felix, I swear…” Sylvain shook his head. “As the reliable older brother of the Lions, I have to say I’m proud of you. I had hoped, but never thought this day would come.”

Sylvain offered to share relationship advice, which was soundly rejected by all of them. Dimitri did not speak more on the subject. As soon as he finished his meal, he excused himself.

He made up his mind to go see Claude again sometime. If he was going to be teased regardless, he may as well see what could come of it. Having come to terms with this desire made it much more manageable, and for a while it slipped far enough into the back of his mind that he mostly forgot.

Yet another week passed. They were heading out on their first real mission in the last week of the month, so there wouldn’t be time to celebrate Mercedes’ birthday properly if they had to rush off to battle immediately after. Knowing how Mercedes loved to bake, they planned a small party for the Blue Lions on the free day of the 25th. It was more convenient for everyone’s schedules.

They gathered in the kitchens right after lunch was cleared away. The staff would only allow so many students in at once if they came during the least busy time, in that hour or two before dinner preparations began. They were making several batches of cookies in different flavors. Bowls of ingredients were set out on the counter. There was a small pile of gifts on the table that Mercedes wanted to open together once the cookies were done and they were all seated. It was just like her to use her birthday to give to everyone else.

Mercedes led the team baking effort. Ashe and Dedue, the most experienced cooks, were tasked with gathering and portioning out the ingredients. She set Felix on creaming, and though he grumbled, he enjoyed turning his aggression into fluffy butter. Ingrid sifted the flour, Sylvain rolled the dough, and Annette cut it into beautiful shapes. Mercedes herself bustled around helping with each task.

Dimitri, who was an absolute wreck in the kitchen, was told to watch the oven.

“Ah!” Suddenly, he remembered. “Mercedes?”

“Yes?”

“I know you wanted to do gifts later, but I thought… Well, I got you baking spices. Perhaps they would be useful now.”

Mercedes’ eyes lit up. “Yes, of course! Let’s open it now.”

The package was wrapped in simple brown paper, tied with twine. When Mercedes opened it, they saw quite a few packets inside, each labeled with the name of the spice. Mercedes went through, taking stock of her ingredients. “Let’s see… ginger, cloves, nutmeg… Oh, anise! That’s an unusual flavor. Hmm, and three types of cinnamon? Morfis cinnamon, Seren cinnamon, Khamiron cinnamon? I wonder what the differences are.”

Underneath all the cinnamon, there was one last packet. It said, in what he assumed was Claude’s handwriting, “Cardamom. Peel open pod and grind just before use. A little goes a long way.” Dimitri had never heard of this spice, though that wasn’t strange. He had never heard of some of the others Mercedes had just rattled off. It was, however, strange that Mercedes seemed not to know of it.

“I feel as if I’ve seen the name written in a book somewhere before, but I can’t for the life of me remember ever encountering… cardamom?” She set aside the other spices and gingerly opened the packet. Unlike the others, it was not a powder, but rather a few green seed pods that Mercedes poured into her hand. She brought one up to her nose, and – “Oh, it smells… It smells heavenly!”

Dimitri could get a faint whiff of it as soon as she poured them out. He registered the smell as pleasant. Warm. Intriguing. Spices were a rarity in Faerghus cuisine. They feasted with spiced meats and mulled wines, but it wasn’t a part of everyday fare. He remembered shying away from the more strongly flavored foods as a child, but now that his sense of taste was gone he had begun to find novelty in scents and textures.

He smiled at Mercedes. “Yes, it’s very nice.”

“I think this is the one,” Mercedes said.

Professor Byleth arrived with tea as the last of the cookies were pulled out of the oven. It was probably all the tea the merchants by the gate had in stock for the day. The Professor, head cocked, eyes blank, said, “I didn’t know what types everyone would like.”

Within a week they would all have made their first kills. Dimitri already knew what it was like to be responsible for death, to thrust his lance into a living body and out a dead one, blood and viscera pouring out over his gauntlets, flowing, sticky, dripping into the black metal joints. He came out of his maiden battle a different person, as did Felix. The rest of their classmates would now experience the same. If there was any way to lessen the burden, they should do so. He and the Professor had come to this agreement.

For now, they could be children. For now, all the students who would join the battle were gathered for the most raucous tea party any of them had ever had. They sat together regardless of their backgrounds or social standing, and ate and laughed without care for etiquette.

The food still didn’t taste like anything, but seeing everyone’s joy at how they turned out, that last batch flavored with cardamom was Dimitri’s favorite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, just Blue Lions being cuties. Claude POV will return next chapter.


	4. Almyran Pine Needles

Gulshan had been spymaster and assassin for two Almyran kings before her beauty faded and she lost the swiftness that was essential for the job. Any woman who took up such a sensitive position had to vow never to have children of her own, never to divide her loyalties with a mother’s love. Information and manipulation were all she had known for nearly four decades. When she retired from field work, she thought she could take in an orphan to love and train, so when her king asked of her to take one last undercover mission as one of the queen’s ladies for an indefinite amount of time, she told him, “My lord, if you ask this of me, you will be depriving me of the joy of finding my own successor. For this, I will take your son.”

Of course, this was exactly what the king wanted. It was the best outcome he could expect, for Gulshan to direct her nurturing instincts toward his son. Many assassins had come after his wife during her pregnancy, and afterward they switched to the easier target of the infant prince. “You may train him however you like,” the king replied to Gulshan. And so she did.

In between his formal lessons, she trained the prince in herb lore, to make poisons and resist them. She taught him the basics of seduction and anatomy, so that if cornered he might slide between the enemy’s thighs and slit the artery there. Most importantly, she taught him how to read people and manipulate desires of all sorts. What people loved best was to believe convenient lies, Gulshan told him, and Claude had never forgotten.

Claude’s fate as an illegitimate son of House Riegan was sealed that day of the Verdant Rain Moon. For a month prior, they had kept him hidden in the Riegan estate, and he continued residing there for some time after. However, he started going out. He purposely drew attention to himself at times. He allowed the people of Derdriu to believe the most convenient lie – that another of Godfrey’s bastards had turned up, was rejected for being crestless, and that Duke Riegan was now spoiling him as an apology. He became a literal rich bastard and, perhaps to spite the old world order that was always against him, or perhaps to keep himself humble and vigilant, he named his new enterprise after the time of his tactical failure.

In the following month, he set out for the ports of southern Goneril, following a merchant caravan for protection and to gain experience in his new chosen trade. It wasn’t fully a lie. Once there, a few dropped hints and slips of the tongue led him to the Almyrans. And there were plenty of secret Almyrans. Those with lighter skin could pass as Fódlish. The darker skinned individuals pretended to be from Morfis, which drew some attention, but was easily done away with by pretending not to speak the language.

Everyone knew Morfis was a land of strange magic, and their merchants came and went like wraiths. But if you bothered one of them long enough you’d wind up cursed, or so the locals said. The people of southern Goneril were a superstitious lot. They all had stories of friends or relatives who’d seen strange things residing in the mountains, especially across the river in the Empire province of Hrym. What started as a warning not to cross into the Empire – and risk being caught by their guards – had morphed into this tale of unholy beasts and dark magic that made them more fearful of Morfis magic as well. No one wanted to be cursed to wander the lands in monstrous form.

The local traditions were a fascinating mix of Fódlan and Almyra. And yet, if the people were asked outright, there were absolutely zero Almyrans around, despite how every inn in a certain district seemed to serve its meals with pine needle tea.

What a convenient lie it was, that Fódlan’s Throat was the only way Almyrans could enter the country. That Fódlan’s Locket, a singular fort situated in a mountain range that was hundreds of leagues long, could protect the entire continent from Almyran invaders. There was no truth in it. Almyra was at least as large as all of Fódlan, an empire in its own right. They split their forces to maintain their borders in all directions, though if Almyra truly wanted to invade at full might, they would do so by sea and air. They would do so by allying with Dagda to carve up Fódlan’s corpse between them. But of course it was more convenient to believe in the false sense of security provided by the Locket than to admit Fódlan’s isolationism had made its people naive. It was easier than admitting that they, and their Goddess, were but mere specks in a grander universe filled with people of countless other faiths.

So he found the secret Almyran merchants, and he told them he was one of the royal spies, which was not entirely a lie. He was royal, and a spy. It was much easier to swallow than the idea of the crown prince wandering a hostile foreign country alone, peace treaty or no. Somehow, this spy had gained a foothold in House Riegan and needed their help to establish trade routes through Fódlan that would double as his information network. It would be very profitable for them, and it would be in Fódlan’s best interests too. Almyra was interested in furthering their peace treaty and trade agreements, he said, but they needed information to keep Fódlan stable. Very profitable. Wouldn’t harm the families they’d started in Fódlan at all. The king of all people would understand their plight.

This was the closest he had come to telling the whole truth in… a very long time. The words stung and burned his throat the more they came out. Eventually his hands started shaking and he could no longer smile. The merchant he was dealing with had invited Claude to his home, and as they chatted on the veranda, Claude could see the man’s half-blood children playing happily with their Fódlish neighbors.

In any other situation, showing this weakness would have been a misstep, but here it only made the man nod in understanding. “Someday,” he whispered, “my children will not have to hide half of who they are.”

By the time Claude was able to leave, the burning had made its way to his eyes. When he made his way back to his room at the inn, he buried his face into the pillow so that it would soak up any evidence of his silent tears. His shoulders shook as he cried for his lost childhood, lost to the hatred between his parents’ countries that had made him fearful of assassins at every bend. He should have been allowed to play, but instead had to study and train in every discipline from his earliest years because a Fódlan man had to be twice as smart as an Almyran to not be called stupid, and twice as strong to not be called weak. He should have had friends, but had only potential betrayers. He should have had siblings, but it wouldn’t have been fair to bring another child into a life like Claude’s.

Seeing other half-Almyrans brought all his old aches to the surface. If he kept on this path, he would have to keep confronting these feelings. He would probably cry again, and he _hated_ crying.

So of course he kept going, driven by a greater purpose and probably no small dose of masochism. He made his way back north to Derdriu and found the secret Almyrans there. It was harder for them to hide in Derdriu without Morfis as a convenient neighbor, but luckily the bourgeoisie were practiced in the art of ignoring politics when it got in the way of their tea and silk shipments. In Derdriu it was perfectly okay for Fódlan natives to _go_ to Almyra to buy goods. It just wasn’t okay for Almyrans to come into Derdriu offering to sell those very same goods, often at lower prices. But who actually knew who was who? As long as they remained cautious and kept their shipments smaller, no one cared much about the Almyrans at the docks.

“Increase the shipments,” Claude told them. “Sell directly to me, and I’ll cover you.”

Autumn had passed by the time the first of his orders arrived, and in that time he worked on establishing the land routes. The greatest stroke of luck he had encountered was the Kirsten family selling their business. The owner wanted to retire, perhaps open a small inn, and his grandson wanted to use some of the funds to attend the Officer’s Academy at Garreg Mach. They had an outpost very close to the monastery, a hair’s breadth away from the center of Fódlan and all the deepest secrets of the Church of Seiros. It was too good to resist.

That winter, news of House Riegan’s decision to step down after the current Sovereign Duke’s reign had spread through the Alliance, and along with it rumors of their new beloved bastard. Duke Riegan had gone just a tinge mad with grief after the loss of both his children, they said. Since House Riegan was set to lose its noble status, he had pinned his hopes on his grandson to transition them into mercantilism. This grandson just so happened to have a sharp mind for numbers and nothing else. He was a carefree, cheerful boy who’d grown up hidden in one of Godfrey’s summer estates, isolated but spoiled. As a result he came out both extremely eager to make new friends and charmingly ignorant of the world he had only seen from books. Not fit for political backstabbing at all, they said. It was his good luck to be born crestless, or one of the other lords would have had him assassinated by now.

By spring, he had set up shop in Airmid Falls. The major supply lines through the Alliance were all set up, seeded with Riegan loyalists who believed they were spying to protect the future of the Alliance – not entirely a lie, and he was poised to extend his reach into the Kingdom and Empire. Most importantly, he had access to the students of the Officer’s Academy, who would go on to rule over all corners of Fódlan. Through them, it was possible to gain enough of a reputation to receive an invite into the monastery itself. All he had to do was bait the trap and wait.

His glaringly Almyran shop caught the eye of a few students from minor families, some of whom praised him for “bringing the style of East Goneril to the center of Fódlan”, like he was doing them a favor spreading _their_ culture. Their naivety was honestly so cute. Claude had spelled out the truth for them in bright glazed tiles, and they still chose the convenient lie.

In the first week of the Harpstring Moon, Claude caught his first big prey, Lorenz _Hellman_ Gloucester, as he introduced himself. Count Gloucester was dangerous and was suspected of having plotted to assassinate Duke Riegan in the past, but he also only had a single heir. If Claude gained control of Lorenz, he could eliminate the threat of House Gloucester. Wasn’t it a wonderful thing that Lorenz was a tea aficionado and Claude owned a tea shop?

Unexpectedly though, Lorenz came with an equally important tagalong in the form of Prince Dimitri of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. Dimitri seemed earnest and knightly and all those good things wrapped up in a cute package of awkward teenager, but the political state of the Kingdom was, frankly, a mess. It would of course be good for his reputation as a merchant to have the Prince of Faerghus as a regular patron, but there was a great risk as well. Prince Dimitri’s grasp on power was so tenuous, and Claude didn’t want to risk everything on backing him.

But, well… it was a door to Kingdom politics, however long the prince’s interest would last. Dimitri seemed intrigued by the mystery of him, at least. Having spent all this time with them, Claude now understood why those of the lower classes sometimes bemoaned the fact that their daughters were too pretty or had unusual coloring. It made them a target of nobles seeking exotic playthings. Claude figured Dimitri’s desire was the sort that nobles held for commoners who caught their eye. An easy tumble with someone who wasn’t in a state to refuse. No strings. No feelings or consequences except on the side of the commoner. He had the added bonus of being a boy, too, so Dimitri wouldn’t have to worry about Claude popping out any Crest babies and demanding to be taken as consort.

As for Claude, he told himself he would be okay with it. He had never actually seduced someone, but he knew what to do in _theory…_ In theory, he was willing to do almost anything for the sake of his dreams, especially now that he had so many people depending on him. Laying with someone was far from the worst thing he might have to do, and it wasn’t as if Dimitri was unattractive.

Then there was a part of him that wanted to trust Dimitri, some stupid childish remnant of his heart that said they could be friends. Just because Dimitri had looked at him as if he were beautiful, his stupid soft heart thought they could fall in love. They could overcome all obstacles together, Crests and status and nationalities be damned. It was tempered by the fact that he didn’t know Dimitri at all. Dimitri was the sort that was so easy to read on the surface that there must be something terrible hiding deeper inside. And someone like Claude had no true friends, he reminded himself, only potential betrayers.

One of these lines of thought was a convenient lie, but it was all such a jumbled mess in his head that Claude couldn’t figure out which one was right. It left him without a solid plan regarding the prince, and if there was one thing he hated more than crying, it was being without a plan.

In the end he told himself it would be fine if Dimitri used him and tossed him away, because Claude would be using him as well. If he was a cruel lover, well, that was expected of lords. And it would be fine if they became friends instead, as much as Claude could be friends with someone, because that would give him more influence among the Kingdom nobles in the long run. Dimitri was too valuable to let go either way. Claude could plan around whatever happened. All he had to do was figure out Dimitri’s desires and play into them.

Claude predicted that Dimitri would skip visiting for a week or so. It wouldn’t do for a noble to appear too eager when seeking the favor of a commoner. However, when Lorenz returned right on schedule, Dimitri was not with him.

It was quiet in the shop when Lorenz came in. It was early evening, and most of the visitors from Garreg Mach headed back before this time. He struggled a bit to push open the door while his arms were laden with various bags. A spritely young lady flounced in with him, and Claude knew two things about her right away: that she was a Goneril, and that she was a manipulator like himself.

The pink hair marked her as a member of House Goneril, and while it was popular among some socialite circles to dye one’s hair in vibrant shades, the matching eyes confirmed it. That she was able to drag Lorenz around like a pack horse was proof of the second.

“Welcome! Let me help you with those bags.” Claude greeted them with his customer service smile and led Lorenz to set his burdens down at an empty table.

“Thank you, Claude. Ah, that’s much better.”

Lorenz’s companion had been sizing up Claude the whole time. “So you’re the mysterious ‘Just Claude’ I’ve been hearing so much about. Hilda Valentine Goneril. Nice to meet you.” She curtsied very prettily. Perfect form. Someone had taken their etiquette lessons seriously as a child.

“A pleasure, my lady. I hope you’ve only heard good things.”

“Oh, on the contrary, I’ve only heard the very worst! Holst was so looking forward to having a squire. You’ve made my brother cry, refusing his offer like that, and now he’s still smothering me with his affections instead of you. You’ve got a lot to answer for, buddy.”

Claude let a look of horror cross his face. “But Lord Holst wrote in his letter that he was going to train me in _heavy armor_. Does this look like the sort of physique that could handle heavy armor?”

Hilda laughed, completely abandoning her perfect lady act. “Ugh. I know, right? How could they expect us pretty dainty things to do front line fighting?”

Lorenz opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to comment on how Hilda had the Crest of Goneril, which gave its bearers unusually sturdy bodies regardless of size or appearance. Then he thought better of it.

Claude leaned into Hilda’s act. With a hand upon his imaginary heaving bosom, he said breathily, “Yes, that’s so true, my lady. I find that a life of endless tea parties suits my delicate constitution much better.”

“Merciful Goddess… now there are two of them…” Lorenz’s face pinched into a look of pure suffering.

Hilda laughed, great big unladylike guffaws, and Claude followed suit. When their peals of laughter died down, Hilda wiped a tear from her eye. “Ah, I needed that.”

“Always happy to be of service!” Claude shot her a casual two-finger salute.

“Anyway, I did come to buy some tea. Mind if I take a look at the goods?”

“By all means, my lady,” Claude said, gesturing to the display tables.

“And drop the formalities, please. If you can be Just Claude, I insist you call me Just Hilda.”

“Sure thing, Hilda. Holler if you need me.”

As Hilda looked around, Claude turned his attention back to Lorenz, whose face was still troubled. It must have been difficult for him – someone so by-the-book in his authority style – to manage a subordinate like Hilda. She was most likely meant to be his second in command, but Hilda seemed the type to not care for the noble ideals of chivalry and duty. Lorenz no doubt knew this, and wanted to appeal to her through friendship and favors, hence carrying her bags. And Hilda, the little schemer, took full advantage of that. Poor Lorenz. Even if it earned him friendship points, she wasn’t likely to respect a leader who let her walk all over him.

Giving Lorenz advice on how to deal with Hilda would be revealing too many layers of his cover, unfortunately. Instead, he chose to pursue a different thread.

“The prince not with you this time?” he asked as nonchalantly as he could.

“Why?” Lorenz asked, his blade-thin nose lifted high in the air. “Are you _interested_?”

Claude pretended to have a moment of shyness. He turned his head away to feign hiding a blush and moved to make samples for his customers. He spoke carefully as he worked.

“Mmm, well, I pride myself on providing excellent customer service, and part of that is getting to know all of my customers’ tastes. Everyone who comes in, I figure out what they like best. I’ve never failed, except for Prince Dimitri. Couldn’t find a way to get it out of him without seeming creepy, you know, since he wasn’t shopping for himself. It’s been on my mind a bit.”

“Yes. Of course. I fully believe you spent your days pondering his tea preferences and not, say, the way you two held hands and got lost in each other’s eyes.”

“I suppose we flirted a little.”

“A little? I daresay you flirted a lot.”

Claude shrugged. “I’ve never had that sort of effect on someone before. It was flattering.”

“Hmm. Well, you are a Riegan in blood if not in name. I suppose it would be a good enough match. More pro-Alliance influences in the Kingdom are always a plus.”

“Are you seriously planning our political _marriage_? Lorenz. Good Sir Gloucester. We’ve spoken _once_. And also, I am most emphatically _not_ a Riegan. If I were, you’d have to fight me for that cape.” He reached over and flicked the cape off Lorenz’s shoulder.

“That shouldn’t be too difficult, given how _delicate_ you are.”

Hilda had been listening in even as she perused the displays. In turn, Claude had surreptitiously watched her and noted her preference for fruity and floral teas. Lorenz was partial to roses, and he would bet Hilda was as well. Rose Petal Blend was a common favorite among Alliance and Kingdom nobles, or so it was said, but instead of pulling that out, he retrieved a cooled pot of Almyran Pine Needles that he had brewed for himself prior to their arrival.

He poured this tea into tall glasses rather than the usual teacups, and added a spoonful of honey. Lorenz watched on in curiosity, and when Hilda came over as well, Claude pulled out his secret ingredient – rose water. It was made from Almyran roses, which were bred for their scent more than anything else. A small splash in each glass made the tea more fragrant than any tea made with dried roses could achieve.

“Oh wow, this is nice,” Hilda said. “Surprisingly so. I don’t normally go for pine needles – too strong for my taste. But this is… It seems a bit familiar, like I’ve had it before.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if you had. It’s popular in some parts of Goneril, though mostly among commoners. The rose water is a byproduct of making rose oil for perfume. The nobles get the perfume, and the commoners are left with a bunch of rose water that they’ll put in tea and cakes and a whole host of other things.”

Hilda frowned slightly. “I suppose it must have been a servant who gave it to me. And then my father probably yelled at them and scared them off from being nice to me again.” She sighed. “Ah, well.”

They made their purchases so as not to seem suspicious in their motives for visiting the tea shop that was, to them, obviously run by an agent of House Riegan. Lorenz had begun to have his suspicions in the first visit, but only dared to confirm it without Dimitri around.

An Alliance spy had revealed himself to them, they thought, and it wasn’t wrong. Four out of five of the great lords had children attending the Officer’s Academy this year. Their overprotective dads were worried and sent someone to protect them and relay messages in the event of an emergency. After what happened with the School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad, and how all Alliance students, including Lorenz, had to pull out due to the rebellion in the Kingdom, the Roundtable was understandably concerned that the unrest would spread to Garreg Mach. 

“I’d love to get an invite to sell at the monastery on weekends,” Claude said as they were leaving. “It’ll save you the trip. And tell Dimitri to stop by sometime!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kinda dead from grading a bunch of exams, so I'm gonna go pass out now... (If you feel there's a lack of Byleth in this, it's because I'm a teacher too and I just can't. YOU ARE NOT A CREEPER, BYLETH. NO TOUCH.)
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading along! Your support is super appreciated!


	5. Green Dragon

It was too early in the morning, Dimitri thought as he stared at the ‘Closed’ sign hanging on the door. He’d been up before the sun and out the monastery gates as soon as they opened, the normally energetic gatekeeper yawning even as he waved goodbye. Dimitri passed the merchants who were heading up the path, and he knew for sure that Claude had not been among them. At the time, it had seemed to be the right choice to hurry into town before he lost his nerve. Now, he shifted his weight from foot to foot, unsure of what to do after his breakneck pace had been abruptly stopped.

Sylvain’s birthday had passed a few days ago. Dimitri, in his obsessive drive to not be distracted from his goals, had forgotten to prepare for it until it was too late. The first of the Garland Moon, which had been his last day to procure a proper gift, had been spent marching back to the monastery covered in the grime of battle. It had been his turn to be that person handing over a half-crushed flower on top of a whetstone, though his gift also came with an apology and a promise to make it up to his friend.

With a sly glint in his eyes, Sylvain had put his hands under his chin and said, “Buy me tea.”

It was much too early. The sun had just fully risen, and the only shops that were open were the food stalls selling produce and breakfast. Besides that, was Claude even in? There weren’t any wagons around this time. The outpost seemed very quiet, perhaps a sign that all the merchants of this company were out on the road.

Dimitri reluctantly stepped away from the door. It was a disappointing result, to be sure, but there would be other opportunities to meet again. He walked around to the stables to confirm that there were no horses, but just as he was about to leave, he saw a dark shape emerge from around the corner.

As the light struck it, Dimitri realized that it was Claude’s wyvern wandering by herself, unchained. He stood still and let her approach him. Up close again, and this time without Claude taking up all his attention, he could see that she was indeed small for a wyvern, still growing. She bent down to snort into his hair.

“Hello, girl. Precious, was it?” He reached up to stroke her snout, to which she rumbled contentedly. Precious lowered her head even more and nudged him for more pats. “I can see you live up to your name.”

Wyverns were rarely allowed to roam freely due to their size and the fact that a poorly trained one would happily eat all the horses it was stabled with, and sometimes the riders. Precious had obviously been socialized well, so there was no danger of that happening. Dimitri was glad to have this rare opportunity to interact with such a sweet beast. He brought up both hands to scratch around her head and neck, allowing himself to use more of his strength than he would with a horse. Precious closed her eyes. Her tail began to swing and thump the ground.

Dimitri was engrossed in scritching the wyvern’s chin when he heard the sound of an impact, like wood shattering from a magical explosion or the blow from an axe. The sharp crack caught Precious’ attention and she snapped her gaze to the second floor of the tea shop. Half a moment later, a smaller crack resounded as the wooden shutters on one of the upstairs windows were slammed open so violently they smacked the outside wall. Claude leaned out, coughing and gasping for fresh air. Black smoke billowed out from behind him.

“Are you all right? Need any help?” Dimitri called upward.

“Hrrrggrooaar.” Precious voiced her concern as well.

Claude rubbed his eyes, smearing a line of soot across his face. He blinked a couple of times to focus his eyes on Dimitri’s figure below. “Dimitri? What are you doing here so, uh, early?”

He seemed confused by the light of day. It was a sign that he had been pulling an all-nighter. Dimitri recognized that bleary-eyed look as the one worn by some of his classmates who liked to do the same. Annette, for one, often forgot the time when she was studying. Linhardt of the Black Eagles was perpetually this way, his sleep schedule having completely flipped after spending so many nights reading until the sun came up.

Dimitri’s first impression of Claude had been that he was a very well put together person. Discovering that he also had this side to him – sleep-deprived, hair falling out of his braid – didn’t make him any less captivating.

“My apologies. I went for an early morning ride and didn’t consider the time. Please don’t let me inconvenience you.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. You can come up. Just let me, um, I’ll be right there.” Claude ducked back into the smoky room.

Dimitri returned to the front of the shop with Precious slinking behind him. When Claude reappeared to open the door, he was still disheveled, but at least his face was mostly soot-free. He saw Precious looming over Dimitri, huffing and agitatedly shifting around to get a better view of her rider. The man and his wyvern stared off against each other with Dimitri caught in the middle of this strange ritual.

With hands on his hips, Claude said, “Well? You’ve seen that your stupid human’s still alive. Go on, catch yourself something nice for breakfast.”

Precious leaned down to huff into Claude’s already messy hair before trotting to a more empty spot to take flight toward the mountains. They watched her go with smiles on their faces.

“You’ve, ah, there’s wyvern drool in your hair,” Dimitri pointed out.

“Oh?” Claude looked away from Dimitri’s eyes to his hair. He mimed it sticking up. “Looks like we’re a matched set.”

Dimitri hastily attempted to fix his hair, but Claude didn’t even bother. His plain tunic was rumpled and stained, and there was much more going on with his hair than just the wyvern drool. “Sorry I’m such a mess,” he said, leading Dimitri inside.

“No, not at all. I shouldn’t have come to call on you at such an hour.”

“Friends are always welcome,” Claude said. He paused for a second, as if unsure which direction to take, and then waved for Dimitri to follow. “Come on, let’s head upstairs. You’ll have to wait a bit if you want anything from the shop. I’ve got to clean up the spill before anything stains. The sitting room is comfortable, though.”

The stairs were located in a darkened corner, further back into the shop than a customer would wander. They creaked slightly under the weight of two men, one of whom was half suited in armor. It had been years since Dimitri had felt comfortable leaving his quarters dressed in anything less, and usually it didn’t stand out too much. Among the nobles of Faerghus, everyone regularly wore furs and armor even in peacetime. It was tradition to show off one’s battle readiness in such a way.

But here, now, noticing his heavy armored steps on the stairs compared to Claude’s light-footed grace, Dimitri remembered how he had felt very out of place during the previous visit. A boar in a tea shop, Felix would no doubt sneer if he was here. The feeling only grew as he was led upstairs.

Claude opened the door to the sitting room adjacent to his private quarters. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just be down the hall for a sec.”

“Wait.” Without thinking, his hand shot out to grasp Claude’s arm. “Let me help.”

Claude’s eyes widened and he let out a small gasp. Dimitri was afraid that he had gripped too tightly, but Claude quickly found his bearings and chuckled. “You’re too chivalrous. C’mon, Your Princeliness, I’ve already embarrassed myself by showing such a slovenly appearance to you. At least let me be a proper host to someone of your station.”

It wasn’t surprising that Claude knew who he was, although he had hoped… Dimitri shook his head. “You called me friend earlier. There should be no titles or stations between friends.”

“You… actually believe that, don’t you.”

“I wouldn’t say something I didn’t mean.”

For a while it looked like Claude would try to argue, but then he just sighed. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s real bad in there.”

“All the more reason for me to lend a hand.”

They went down the hall to the room where Claude had been. It was a lab of some sort, though the work spaces were littered with so many different materials that it was impossible to tell what was being researched. One corner seemed reserved for alchemy. The shelves and table there were lined with beakers and vials of unknown substances, most of which were thankfully still intact. A single vial, perhaps set too close to the edge, had shattered on the hardwood flooring and was slowly fizzing as it ate away at the lacquer.

On the other side of the room, by the open window, a space had been cleared and a magic circle of some sort drawn on a large sheet of parchment on the floor. This was the site of the explosion. The remnants of something once wooden sat in the center of the smudged circle, charred beyond recognition and still occasionally flickering with unearthly light. Fragments of wood had flown all around the room.

Claude quickly found a rag and used it to wipe up the spilled acid. “If you could sweep up the exploded bits around the perimeter, that would be great.” He gestured to the broom and refuse bin nearby.

“What happened here?” Dimitri asked as he worked.

“An experiment,” Claude responded cheerfully. “You’ve never had one of those go wrong?”

“I can’t say I have. Not an arcane one, anyway. I’ll leave the magic to the trained mages.” He glanced curiously at Claude. “Like yourself?”

“Ha! Oh, I’m no mage. Just a hobbyist.”

“That sounds exceedingly unwise.”

Claude came over to drop the glass shards into the bin at Dimitri’s side. He irreverently shrugged. “Where’s the fun in life if you don’t take any risks, blow up a few barrels?”

“What did the poor barrel ever do to you?” Dimitri countered.

“It wouldn’t give up its secrets. I had to get… creative.”

“That doesn’t look successful.” He pointed to the smoldering remains. “Torture almost never works as a method for gathering information.”

“You’ve learned from wise mentors,” Claude said, straight-faced. Right after, he broke into another grin. “Let’s finish up and take a break. There’s nothing to be done about that--” he gestured to the softly glowing pile of ashes “--until the arcane crystal consumes the rest of the reagents, which could take a few hours. We’ll leave the window open.”

They adjourned to the sitting room, which was an interesting space as well. It was formal enough for guests and perhaps business meetings, with a couch and a few cushioned chairs around a low table, and plenty of book shelves against the walls. It was a bit messy though, like the lab. Dimitri was beginning to suspect that Claude was not a very tidy person in his private life. The strange breadth of subjects he took interest in painted a picture of a man who was insatiably curious and had no time to clean up after himself once he’d latched onto a new project. No, he was undoubtedly messy if he’d been able to hoard so many things after a single season. It was like a wyvern building a nest out of discarded knickknacks. The thought brought a smile to Dimitri’s face. To think all of this had been hidden above a tea shop!

A cursory glance around the room revealed books on just about everything. History, faith, folktales, a copy of Professor Hanneman’s latest treatise on Crest analysis… The walls gave off the same frenetic scholarly energy. The sections that weren’t home to the book shelves were covered in maps of all kinds, mostly of different regions of Fódlan, with trade routes current and future pinned to them in thread. The one that most caught his attention, however, was a sprawling masterpiece of cartography depicting what looked like a fantasy land. There were plenty of islands drawn around the edges, and hints of other continents, but it was centered on a large landmass that was shaped somewhat like a dragon. The locations were all written in a foreign script, or perhaps a made-up one.

Dimitri got up to take a closer look when Claude dashed downstairs to grab refreshments. He wanted to mention his interest in the map when Claude returned, but the other man began speaking before he could say anything.

“The pastries are from yesterday, but they should still be good. I have a new tea for you to try, too! A fresh shipment just arrived in Derdriu this past week, and they were lucky enough to find what I asked for.” Claude beckoned for Dimitri to join him on the couch. He had brought up a glass teapot of the type used to show off beautiful floral brews. There was hot water within it, but no tea.

“Look,” Claude said. Excitement bloomed on his face at the prospect of sharing something special, and Dimitri found himself drawn into the anticipation, waiting for the reveal with bated breath. He opened a tin of brilliant gemstone-green leaves, as verdant as the first buds of spring. They unfurled into a light golden liquid when he dropped some into the pot. “Have you ever seen a tea like this? They call it Green Dragon, a secret of the far east, rare even in Almyra.”

“It’s beautiful,” Dimitri said. He took the offered cup and sipped from it. The smell was bright and somewhat similar to plain tea, but fresher and more grassy, as expected of something so green. “And the smell is very pleasing. What herb is this?”

Claude’s smile grew wider, more mischievous. “It’s just tea. The tea plant doesn’t grow in Fódlan, but it grows in Almyra and further east. This is what the leaves look like when preserved without allowing them to be crushed or blackened.”

Further east of Almyra… Claude said it so casually, as if the existence of lands so far away was common knowledge. What tea leaves looked like as a plant, or where that plant came from wasn’t something Dimitri had taken the time to consider before. None of the maps he’d ever seen even depicted Almyra in its entirety. He wondered why this knowledge hadn’t spread around Fódlan. Or was it just something he had never heard of? Something that wasn’t important for a prince of the north to know? New information that had just been gathered in recent years? No, it couldn’t be. He’d had the finest tutors as a child, and even if he hadn’t always paid attention to his lessons, there was no way he could forget something so important… His gaze drifted back to that map of a land like a dragon.

“Green Dragon doesn’t usually get traded since it doesn’t last as long as other varieties in dry storage,” Claude continued. “It was shipped in that barrel. The… exploded one. It was enchanted with some sort of stasis charm to keep goods fresher for longer. That sort of magic is very expensive though, and the eastern mages are very protective of their secrets. I was thinking if I could crack the code, I could enchant my own barrels and start bringing over more sensitive goods in larger quantities. Although… now that I’ve destroyed the barrel, I’ll have to sell the rest of the contents within the month to be safe. I’m not sure how long it’s been since the leaves were processed. They could lose their flavor at any time.”

The barrels were also an intriguing idea. It could very well revolutionize trade, if such containers were made common. Dimitri nodded along. “Do you have access to another of those barrels?” he asked.

“Um… yes?” Claude blinked owlishly.

“Have you considered sending it to the School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad to be looked at?”

“I was, well, actually I was considering the Mage’s College of Enbarr. They’re less stringent about where their research materials are sourced.” He meant that they were less connected to the Church and more open about accepting possible dark magic artifacts.

Dimitri nodded. That was not a bad choice either, and he said as much, but then added, “I can vouch for it and expedite the process if you send it to Fhirdiad.”

Claude’s demeanor seemed to change then. He looked down into his own cup, suddenly somber. “You really are too kind, Your Highness. I don’t understand how someone like you can…” He took a sip to stop himself, and in the silence that followed, the sound of the swallow could clearly be heard. “You should be careful of offering your help to near strangers. I could be an assassin for all you know, or I could just be using you to sink my trade routes into the Kingdom.”

His voice was flippant, but the set of his shoulders belied how tense he was. Careful of the sharp tips of his gauntlets, as gently as he could, Dimitri lifted Claude’s chin with a finger. He could feel his heart begin beating quickly, high in his throat.

“An assassin would never warn me about himself. More trade would benefit us both. And we’re friends now, remember? Friends are allowed to do nice things for each other.”

“You’re going to keep holding that over me, aren’t you?” Claude’s smile returned, though it was weaker than usual.

“You’re the one who said it first, unless you’re revoking the offer?”

Claude sucked in a deep breath. “Ah, you’ve got me.”

It was just a figure of speech. He didn’t mean it in a possessive way, but Dimitri couldn’t help but want to keep someone so witty and radiant tucked against his side through all the storms that awaited him in the future. He could feel Claude’s warmth. As they talked, they had kept leaning closer, and Dimitri still held Claude’s chin in his hand. They were so close now, again.

An inner voice that sounded too much like Sylvain told him they were _close enough to kiss, you coward! Do it! Make a move!_

But Dimitri froze. His heart hadn’t stopped its quickened pace at all, and he knew then that he could not deny how much he desired the companionship of this man. And yet something felt off. Claude was leaning into him, eyes half-lidded and lips parted just so. He gave every outward indication of wanting Dimitri in this way as well, but it… seemed forced?

He couldn’t pinpoint why he thought so.

Dimitri forced a chuckle and turned his gaze away. He forced himself move his hand to instead ruffle Claude’s hair in a friendly manner.

Sensing that the awkward moment was over, Claude quickly returned to his sly act as if nothing had happened. “What did you come here for? As much as I’d like to think you’ve fallen for my charms, I doubt it was just to see me.” He changed the topic and threw in a wink for good measure.

Getting down to business helped Dimitri regain his composure. “Perhaps I will call on you for just that reason some other time, but today I was looking for Bergamot and Hresvelg Blend, if you have them.”

“You might be better off seeking a western merchant for authentic Hresvelg Blend, but I do have my own take on it,” Claude said. He got up to make his way down to the shop, and Dimitri followed. On the stairs, Claude’s back was to him as he said, “It’s not for you though, is it? Your palate’s not so refined.”

It was a curious thing to say. “What led you to that conclusion?”

“You liked the smell of the elderflowers I added to the Sweet Apple Blend. You liked the Green Dragon. The chances of you preferring herbal teas are very high.” Claude shrugged. “And you’re not snotty or Empire enough to be a habitual drinker of Hresvelg Blend. Are you sure I can’t interest you in some Green Dragon for yourself?”

“I would be happy to take some of that off your hands as well. I think Lorenz would like it.”

“Tch. Now you’re just being difficult. Is his birthday coming up too?”

“Yes.” Dimitri allowed himself a smug smile.

Claude huffed, blowing the remnants of his braid away from his face. “One of these days you’re going to come here for yourself.”

“So you can figure out what my favorite tea is? Perhaps I’ll keep that secret a while longer. Does it give me an air of mystery?”

Claude pouted. “Lorenz is such a snitch.”

They kept up the light banter while Claude prepared the order. He was nearly finished when they heard the familiar sound of wingbeats coming closer. Precious thumped to the ground and began growling, calling for her owner.

“Your wyvern’s back.”

“I should get out there before the neighbors start complaining.” He handed the packages off to Dimitri and quickly slid outside. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming! What is it?”

That was Dimitri’s cue to leave, he thought. He would say goodbye to them both and be on his way.

Precious dropped a wolverine carcass at Claude’s feet.

Claude looked up and down from his wyvern to the bloody offering. His brows furrowed. “Augh. Are you serious?”

The mighty hunter puffed out her chest and roared proudly into the sky.

“Oh. Thanks. Now I’ll have to roast and eat this in front of you or you’ll get all offended, is that it?”

Dimitri couldn’t quite suppress his laughter. “I think she’s just looking out for you. You should listen to her. Take better care of yourself.”

“And now you’re on my case too? A man forgets to sleep for _one_ night.”

“Get some rest, Claude. I’ll see you again soon. And you too, Precious.” He bowed and turned to leave.

“The Garland Festival,” Claude blurted out. “There’s one in town two weeks from now. Would you accompany me?”

Dimitri swallowed thickly around his tongue. “It would be my pleasure.”

It would, it definitely would. He wondered what new sides of Claude he would see then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wyverns are giant scaly cats. Fight me.
> 
> This is probably the most regularly I’ve ever updated a fic. I don’t know how long this streak will last. Probably one more chapter before a break for the holidays, and then we’ll see. The story keeps getting longer and taking unexpected detours. The date was supposed to be in this chapter, but they took such a long-ass time getting there… T^T


	6. White Crowns

Love was in the air. It was well into the Garland Moon, and white roses had begun to bloom in full force around the monastery. Their heady scent was inescapable, and whenever a perfumed breeze blew in the right direction, someone would sigh, lost in thoughts of a lover. In between classes, the inhabitants of the monastery – students, staff, orphans, monks, knights and all – could be seen gathering the flowers to make the garlands after which the month was named.

For Dimitri, they brought out complicated feelings. Such traditions were old, very old, and likely rooted in times before the teachings of the Church of Seiros had spread across the land. They were mentioned in tales he had heard as a child; not just the chivalric legends of Loog and his companions, but even older ones told only in hushed whispers by campfires in the dead of winter, of Blaiddyd Wolf-Lord and his men of the deep woods, yearning for the time when the warms winds would blow in from the summer lands. For only then would the white roses bloom, and the hearts of the Snow Maidens thaw enough for them to allow courtship from the Summer Lords. The sights and scents of this season reminded Dimitri of these tales of Old Faerghus before it was conquered by the newly formed Adrestian Empire, before it was tamed by Loog, before the Wolf became the Lion, when all was fey and wild.

There were no records left of that time save for runic carvings on bone flutes and stone tablets that even the most dedicated scholars struggled to read. Whatever books they’d written were long since burnt. When the Adrestian Empire had first conquered the North, they had called its people barbaric, and as such felt it right to wipe it nearly clean of its language and culture, thus sowing the seeds of hatred for ages to come. What tales remained of that faraway time were but a fantasy, and no doubt far from the truth. They were polluted and intermixed from centuries of oppression before Loog reclaimed his people’s land. Some historians in Fhirdiad even said, before the Tragedy of Duscur, that the lost traditions of Old Faerghus were better preserved in Duscur and Sreng than in Faerghus proper.

None of them said so any longer. No one dared to speak positively of Duscur now, except Dimitri himself, whose station protected him.

Regardless, the culture of Faerghus was one that still venerated the struggle between light and darkness. In a land where half the year was winter, there was great meaning in the cycle of the seasons. So far to the north, the sight of the roses was a sign that all would be well; this year would be fertile enough for them to survive another winter. And while Snow Maidens and Summer Lords may have faded into myth and mist, the battle between good and evil remained. Good was the Church, was Seiros, was their salvation. Evil was their savage past, which they loved and hated and could not fully remove from their hearts either way. The white roses had buried their thorns deep.

The line of kings from which Dimitri was descended had always embodied this duality as well. They struggled to be chivalrous when the unnatural strength provided by the Crest of Blaiddyd made monsters of them so easily. Unlike his descendent Loog, Blaiddyd was not always depicted as heroic by modern standards. He lived in a time when a lord’s duty was only to a single tribe. He ruled by strength and strength alone, and though the Church said he later became a hero who rode into battle at the side of Saint Seiros, those of Faerghus who knew the old tales thought perhaps he only followed her lead because she proved to be stronger. Perhaps Seiros’ goddess defeated the spirits of the deep woods to whom Blaiddyd used to pray.

The Church of Seiros did not officially recognize any Garland Festivals, but it also did not condemn them for their heathen roots. Archbishop Rhea made a special appearance during the day’s morning service, and she commended those who chose to dedicate their garlands to the saints.

“It is a time of great joy and reflection,” she said, nearing the close of her speech. “A time to show appreciation for those who are dear to us, whether they be partners, family, friends, or spiritual mentors. Let us consider those good influences in our lives, the people and teachings who guide us along the righteous path, and let us crown them with roses in our hearts. Amen.”

It was well said. Dimitri clasped his hands in prayer along with all the worshipers. “Amen,” they said, hundreds of voices echoing through the cathedral.

There would be far fewer attendees were it not for the Archbishop’s special sermon. Not everyone attended morning service in the cathedral, and it wasn’t required of the students, which was actually quite a lenient position for the Church. But Dimitri still showed up more often than not because he had grown up in a devout household. After all, what was a Holy Kingdom without the blessings of the faith? His father had gone to mass regularly, and Dimitri had been expected to do the same. It hadn’t been an option then.

In recent years, he struggled to maintain his faith. His uncle and counselors had expected him to turn more firmly to the Church for guidance after the Tragedy. He was supposed to take comfort that his loved ones were in the arms of the goddess now. Instead, their ghosts followed him and refused to rest. They came to him like the wolf spirits that were said to have snapped at ancient Blaiddyd’s heels through the bloody snow, goading him into becoming ever fiercer. They wouldn’t leave him be. Not until they were avenged, they said.

There was a part of Dimitri that didn’t believe what they said to him, the ghosts. When he was clearer of mind, he thought the voices might be demons sent to torment him in the guise of his loved ones, or just manifestations of his own guilty conscience. Perhaps it was only Dimitri doing this to himself, punishing himself for taking more after heathen Blaiddyd than holy Loog. Because if he thought long on the memories of his father, King Lambert had been a good man who would never be so cruel to his son. He had wanted to improve relations between Faerghus and Duscur because he had believed _all_ people were created by the goddess, not just those of Fódlan, as the most popular interpretation would have it.

What constituted “Fódlan”, anyway? The old maps had been rewritten many times as more land was conquered in the name of Seiros. The southern half of the peninsula of Sreng hadn’t been Fódlan, but it was now since House Gautier had staked its claim. And similarly, the eastern half of Leicester hadn’t been Fódlan until their expansion assimilated the small tribes that once dwelled there.

“Where’s the body?” he wondered, recalling the map he had seen. “It can’t just be a decapitated dragon’s head.”

“Um, _what?_”

Dimitri was shocked out of his reverie. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud at all. The cathedral was mostly emptied out after the service, yet Dimitri was hunched in one of the pews, mumbling to himself like a madman while his horrified housemates looked on.

If it were Dedue, he would have understood. Among the Blue Lions, the ones who questioned the teachings of the Church the most were Dedue and Sylvain, probably. Dedue hadn’t grown up in the faith, and Sylvain thought Crests were oppressive. No all-loving Goddess would curse her own children with such rotten things, he said when he was being honest. Felix was neutral. He didn’t trust anything beyond his own strength, but he didn’t disagree with Church doctrine as much as he disagreed with Faerghus’ culture of chivalry. He would have used the opportunity to remind Dimitri that he was not sound of mind, but at least he wouldn’t care about the lack of faith.

Unfortunately, all those who might have forgiven him for his near-blasphemous comments were the type to skip worship any chance they could. Instead, he was met with the concerned faces of those who were strongest in their faith.

“Your Highness, are you all right?” Ingrid asked. “Sylvain kept saying you’d be fine after ‘letting out some stress’ in town, but it seems something else has been bothering you lately. I should have known he was lying; you wouldn’t be so improper.”

Ashe chimed in then, and gave him a convenient way out. “You said something about a dragon? Were you thinking about a book? I know I get lost in tales all the time.”

He could say yes and they would all forget about it, but that would be a lie. But if he told the truth, how would they react, to know their leader had the weakest faith among them? Even so, he had to explain himself. Being thought mad would be even worse.

“A book, yes,” he said, “but not a tale. I was reading the Traveler’s Journals in the library and wondered why there were no accompanying maps of these places described to be outside Fódlan. And I began to think about the name of our land, why it is even called Fódlan…”

“Fódla, the body; Sothis, the spirit; Seiros, the voice,” Mercedes dutifully recited. “The three aspects of the Goddess. Fódla, the great dragon of the beginning, laid down her life for her children before she ascended as a divine being of pure spirit, Sothis. Her body became the very land itself so that she could forever nourish her creations.”

Dimitri looked around to make sure none of the other people lingering in the cathedral were close enough to hear them. When he was satisfied, he nodded. “Yes. Fódlan is the dragon, but on our maps we can only see the head, from Fangs to Throat. Where’s the body?”

The four students were clustered around the pew with their heads close together, whispering conspiracies. It was too odd for Ingrid, ever the practical one, to handle. She heaved a weary sigh.

“It’s just a metaphor. Fódla laid down and became the land, but who says the land took on the shape of her body? People who see a dragon’s head in the shape of Fódlan are just being poetic. It’s not meant to be taken literally.”

What Ingrid said was true, but the situation still didn’t seem right. “I understand that, I do. It just brought to my attention that I’ve never seen a map that showed what lies beyond the seas, or even what’s beyond Fódlan’s Throat. If we’re to maintain peace with them, shouldn’t we have maps of our neighbors?”

“I don’t think it’s safe to go so far into savage territory,” Ingrid said. “Our maps probably reflect the furthest edges that people of Fódlan have ever returned from.”

“How do we know they’re savages? We were wrong about Duscur,” Dimitri said, challenging her to disagree with his version of events. “We could be wrong about the others. And if it’s not safe for us to go, why don’t we ask Almyran or Dagdan travelers for _their_ maps? Our knowledge of the world is frustratingly incomplete.”

“We weren’t-- You’re--” She grew silent and unpleasantly meek.

Dimitri hated how docile she became around authority sometimes, like with her father. And lately, with him. Ingrid no longer yelled at him like she did when they were children because he was her prince before he was her friend. Everyone else, too. They all treated him this way, like he was above them or beyond them. If he wasn’t the fragile prince, then he was a raging beast. Either way, he wasn’t _human_.

He was short with her as he said, “If you have something else to say, just say it. I’d rather you be honest than try to spare my feelings.”

Ingrid frowned. “Your Highness, I don’t understand why you insist on thinking of such things. I know you only wish to believe there is good in everyone, but there are limits. The people beyond Fódlan have proven themselves to be savages time and time again. They were not created by our goddess. She didn’t give them souls. They have no honor and cannot be reasoned with.” She sucked in a deep breath, steeled herself, and continued. “We _weren’t_ wrong about Duscur. After what they did to you, the cleansing was justified.”

Dimitri’s temper flared. He shook with suppressed rage. He had meant to goad her on, and it worked far too well. “You would say such things when Dedue has shown us nothing but kindness? I value your loyalty and dedication to me, but I will not stand for injustice to be spoken about others in my name, regardless of where they are from.”

“It’s not about Dedue; he’s different, not like the others of his kind. But Duscur took nearly everything from you, and Sreng would happily take the rest. The Almyrans camp outside Fódlan’s Locket, and Dagdan pirates continue to terrorize the southwestern coast. No matter how romantic it may seem, there are _no _trustworthy peoples beyond our borders. It’s time to let go of that fantasy and grow up!”

Dimitri felt himself grow cold. His anger cooled until it became ice. “So we must slaughter them all, is that right? As they have done unto us, so we shall do unto them, and the cycle continue forever. Let us tear apart their families, burn their towns, rend them limb from limb until they cower before our might! You would condone – glorify – soldiers who gut newborn babes on their spears! Is that chivalry? Is that justice? We pass judgment when we know _nothing_ about them and refuse to learn. Who’s to say we are truly better?”

He stormed away before anyone could step in to diffuse the situation, ignoring Ingrid’s heartfelt cry of “I don’t understand!”

Dimitri took long strides out of the cathedral and across the bridge, eyes boring holes on the path in front. People swerved around him, but none tried to stop him. He needed to go somewhere away from the overwhelming crowds and the flowers with their cloying sweetness.

There was one place where the scent of flowers wouldn’t follow: the training ground. It smelled of nothing but dirt and sweat and weapon oil. Dimitri was nearly there before he heard the calls for him.

“Your Highness, wait! Please wait! Oh, you know I can’t run very fast!”

He kept going, not in any state to listen to her pleas. He didn’t stop until he had approached a training dummy and knocked it off the post with a single backhand. The only person who had been training when Dimitri entered was Felix, who practically lived here. Felix sheathed his practice sword and spat on the ground when he saw Dimitri’s enraged state.

“So you finally show your true face again, boar.” He stomped off, calling out a warning to Mercedes as he left. “The beast has taken off its princely mask. Don’t get too close or it’ll rip you apart with its bare hands and enjoy it all the while.”

Dimitri only vaguely heard the insults. The straw dummy was on the ground, but that wasn’t his target. The post itself was. It was twelve inches across of sturdy hardwood, the diameter of a small tree. Dimitri slammed his fist into it and heard it crack. Every memory that tried to resurface, he punched back.

His father covered in so much blood.

_Crack_.

Glenn’s mutilated corpse, face forever frozen in despair.

_Crack._

Duscur in flames.

_Crack._

“Stop it, they’re children! Please stop!” His own childish voice, calling after the soldiers, _men who swore fealty to him_, as they ignored his commands in order to keep cutting their way through civilians.

_Crack!_

The post snapped in half. The top fell down to thud on the sandy ground. Dimitri roared like the beast he was and gripped the bottom, ripping out the entire length of the log that had been pounded into the ground. He threw it clear across the training grounds where it smashed into the wall.

And for a few moments there was finally silence. His thoughts quieted so that he could only hear his own harsh breaths. Could only feel the wetness dripping underneath his gauntlets that meant he’d bloodied his hands.

“Prince Dimitri, can you hear me? Can you follow my voice?” Mercedes asked. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and then moved down to remove his gauntlets. “You’re injured. I’m going to heal you, is that all right?”

Dimitri came back to himself at the warmth of faith magic knitting together his busted knuckles. Without anger, the only feeling left was shame. What sort of house leader couldn’t even go three full months into the school year without having a breakdown?

He said, voice rough and choking on despair, “Now you see why Felix hates me so. I can’t control myself. I understand if you no longer feel you can rely on me.”

Mercedes didn’t even pause. She continued diligently with the healing. “With all due respect, that’s not what I see. I’ve been a healer’s apprentice with the Church for many years, and I have worked with this condition before.”

“Have you.”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “It is a grief-sickness. Granted, the other patients have not had your strength, but it is the same. Sometimes people’s hearts break when they go through terrible things. It can take a long time to get better, but you _can _get better, Dimitri. You just need the right support.”

“I don’t know if...” He sighed. The kindness was undeserved, but he was grateful for it all the same. “Thank you for believing in me.”

“Do you want me to get Dedue?”

He shook his head, no. “I don’t want to tell him what Ingrid said. He won’t admit it, but he hurts whenever someone whispers about him. Please don’t mention this to him, either. He’ll worry.”

“I think you are an honorable man, to get so angry when someone insults a friend. Your burdens would be lessened if you would let us all share them. But that’s all right. I trust you will talk to him on your own time.”

The light from her magic faded, and Mercedes reached into the healers’ kit she carried to pull out a roll of bandages. His wounds had sealed up, but the new skin was still tender. She worked efficiently to bandage the affected areas.

“There. All finished. Now, I believe you mentioned something about going into town today? You’ll have to get presentable first!”

Dimitri had no energy left to refuse. He let Mercedes lead him to his room to drop off his bloody gauntlets. In a burst of spontaneity, he decided to change out of his uniform entirely. Dimitri really didn’t have much in the way of casual clothes, but he tried to find the plainest set. The linen of his shirt was too fine and the pants too tailored for him to pass as anything other than nobility, and the only non-armored footwear he had were very high quality riding boots. Still, the change felt a little better. His mind was clear enough that he also remembered to bring the tea that he was to give Edelgard for her birthday.

When he was done, Mercedes led him back outside to the hedges that lined the courtyard. He was glad that no one paid them much attention. Most students they passed were engrossed in making and exchanging garlands, or gossiping about who was receiving confessions.

Mercedes had taken him to where Ashe was gathering roses, and she began plucking some herself. Ashe, however, seemed to freeze at the sight of him, and Dimitri did the same.

“Apologies. I should have conducted myself better,” Dimitri managed to croak out. “Is Ingrid all right?”

Ashe offered a wobbly smile. “She’ll be fine. She’s strong.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. He truly was. Ashe and Ingrid had quickly become close friends, but Ashe was also a good friend to Dedue. Dimitri hadn’t wanted to let him know about the strife between them in such a way. “It’s just… we’ve known each other for so long, and been through so much together. Felix and Sylvain have given up on knightly honor, but Ingrid believes in it more strongly than even I do. I admire that about her, but I fear she will take it too far and become zealous, willing to commit horrors if a king but commands it. And I do not wish to become that king.”

Mercedes paused, a rose in her hand. “Hmm. I see. For what it’s worth, I believe the people of Duscur have souls.”

“Me too,” Ashe said, fingers lightly brushing along the edges of the garland he was weaving. “Dedue, and Petra, Cyril, and Shamir… they have souls. And if they do, all their people do too. Ingrid will come around if she spends more time with them.” Ashe smiled brightly. “I’m making this one for Dedue, actually. I’m going to weave in some flowers from Duscur, too. I really hope he likes it!”

Dimitri couldn’t help but smile in return. “That’s very kind of you. I’m sure he’ll love it.”

“Of course he will,” Mercedes said. In the time that they had been speaking, she had deftly woven the frames for three garlands and was working on the fourth. When asked who they were for, she said, “Oh, this one’s for Annie, and this one’s for the Professor, and one for Flayn – I don’t think Seteth will mind if a girl gives it to her, will he?” In short, she was making one for everyone.

“But Prince Dimitri, you have to make one too!” she exclaimed at Dimitri’s empty hands. Ashe agreed with this, and together they guided Dimitri as he made his first and only garland of the day. It was slightly crooked, but he’d only broken one stem in the process, which was a resounding success as far as his track record with delicate work went.

The events of the morning had stripped him down to his raw and hurting core. Pretending to be fine again was hard, but there were still things he had to do. He left Mercedes and Ashe when his garland was complete and, walking through the courtyard, tried to keep his thoughts pleasant.

Love was in the air. The season was one to be grateful for one’s current companions, not to dwell on those who had been lost. On his way to find Edelgard, he passed Lorenz and Ferdinand having tea on the terrace. Dimitri ducked away before he could be invited to join them, but knowing that Lorenz was enjoying his birthday gift with a friend brought Dimitri’s mood up considerably.

Edelgard could often be found around the terrace area as well. The view of the flowering hedges was most beautiful here, and she liked to find a quiet corner to read while surrounded by nature. Hubert was not with her when Dimitri arrived, though there were no flowers on Edelgard’s table, so perhaps he had been chasing away admirers until recently.

She saw the garland in his hand as soon as he approached. Her eyes sharpened and the line of her mouth tightened. “That had better not be for me.”

“What? Er, I came to give you this--”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s women who give the garlands, Dimitri. I’m telling you now, I respect you as a warrior and a leader, but if you harbor any delusions of gaining my affections, I won’t hesitate to crush you.”

“--tea,” he said, holding out the package in his other hand. “Happy birthday.”

“Oh. That’s. Thank you.”

Dimitri smiled. “It must be difficult for you to share your birthday with the Garland Festival. Were you thinking of the clumsy gifts I gave you as a child? Relax, Edelgard, I won’t do so again.”

Either she was a great actor, or the memories may not have been as clear for her as they were for him. It wasn’t the first time that he thought she responded strangely when he brought up their shared experiences. Edelgard’s expression flashed to one of confusion for a moment, but she recovered quickly. “Why, have you finally realized you’re a boy?”

“I was never under any delusions otherwise. Besides, men give garlands nowadays. Perhaps I was merely ahead of the trend in my youth.”

“True, though I thought you might think it improper, with your love of tradition.”

“I’m not so unyielding,” he retorted. Even though said in jest, it stung a bit to think anyone would see him that way, especially after the argument he’d had this morning. It was true that Dimitri believed keeping order and stability was more important than making sweeping changes, but that didn’t mean he was against any change at all. He just thought they should come more slowly, with as little disruption to the lives of commoners as possible. Quick and bloody reforms often led to even quicker and bloodier backlash.

“Well, I’m glad to be wrong,” Edelgard said. She kept her tone light as she inquired, “You’re going into Airmid Falls?”

It was telling that she mentioned the town by name, as if it were natural he would go there rather than any of the other towns around the monastery. Had the rumors of his expeditions spread to her ears? Perhaps Dimitri had been too indiscreet.

He chuckled nervously. “Yes, I wanted to see the festival there.”

“Be careful,” she said, getting up from her seat. “He’s not who he seems.”

Her back was already facing him, so he couldn’t see what sort of expression she wore, and she strode off before he could ask her to clarify.

That was yet another thing to ponder, but one he saved for a later date. There was still one more thing he had to do today: he had promised to meet Claude. They hadn’t set a time, but it would already be past noon when he arrived, and the festivities would be in full swing.

True enough, as he sped down the path, he began to hear strains of song coming from the town. Lute, lyre, flute, drum. The minstrels were all out in the streets heading to and from the village green, and when Dimitri came into the town proper, he could hear them singing the songs of the season. He caught only a few lines of the jaunty tunes, things like “winter’s winds begone, summer’s triumph sung from every bough” and “crownèd with flowers is my fair love on her throne”. While Airmid Falls was considered Alliance territory, it was still located in central Fódlan, so the music here was not so different from that of southern Faerghus.

What _was_ different was the men with stag’s antlers upon their heads. He had only ever seen this depicted in books. One in particular that his tutor had made him memorize, titled “The Curiosities of Leicester”, had remarked on how the stag men only came out at festivals four times per year to mark the changing of the seasons. The antlers were decorated differently according to the season – burnished leaves for autumn, barren in winter, dainty buds at the start of spring, and now in summer they were wrapped in the white rose garlands gifted to them by women dressed in white who shrieked with glee as they were chased by their chosen paramours.

“The Summer Lords,” he mumbled to himself.

“Would you like to be my Snow Maiden, Your Princeliness? Shall I chase you?”

Dimitri startled when Claude pressed up against his side. He nearly jolted again when he turned and saw Claude’s cheeky grin. The impossible green of his eyes and the warm brown of his hair and sunkissed skin framed by the crown of antlers was the very image of a golden Summer Lord. He was only missing the roses, which perhaps meant… Had he been waiting for Dimitri to offer him a garland?

Dimitri hadn’t intended to get distracted by the views before he could turn down the road to the tea shop. He certainly hadn’t thought Claude would find him first, and so quickly. The thought of Claude waiting for him, keeping an eye out on the road into town, brought a warmth creeping through his chest.

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a maiden, but you may have this garland if you don’t mind the poor craftsmanship.” He held up the garland he’d made at his friends’ direction, which was still crooked and slightly worse for wear after the ride. It was a poor offering. Very poor. If they were in the olden days, and this a true bid for courtship, Claude would have every right to refuse a partner so unskilled. Instead, he grinned so happily at the prospect of wearing Dimitri’s terrible, kind of squashed garland. He looked at the thing like it was a treasure.

“I accept!” Claude bowed his head so the garland could be placed at the base of his antlers. After he straightened up, he said, “Actually, I have one for you too,” and brought into view the garland he had been hiding behind his back.

And thus, Dimitri was also crowned.

Right then, his stomach growled loudly to remind him that it was mid-afternoon and he hadn’t eaten lunch. Claude looked at him in amusement. “No chasing on an empty stomach,” he said, reaching for Dimitri’s hand. He pulled them toward the village green. “Come on, all the food stalls are this way.”

Claude was practically bouncing with excitement as he rounded up different snacks for them to share. Dimitri tried to protest, tried to slow Claude down enough to provide coin, but Claude as a man on a mission was hard to keep up with. He ended up carrying handfuls of food while Claude dashed to and fro collecting more. When both their arms were laden with goods, they finally stopped at a secluded spot near the top of the grassy knoll.

The festival foods were mostly a variety of fruits and hand pies stuffed with seasonal ingredients – things that were easy to eat on the go. Dimitri paid little attention to consuming his own meal. He kept glancing over to Claude, who was much more presentable than the last time they met, even with his cheeks chipmunk-full and eyes closed in delight. It had been years since Dimitri had enjoyed going to a festival with friends. Being with Claude in this way felt nostalgic and new all at once.

Claude swallowed the last bite of his pastry with a satisfied exhalation. “This place is great, isn’t it? The towns around Garreg Mach all are. Great big melting pots of Fódlan’s traditions – deer and archery from the east and maidens dressed in white from the north. Some of the bards can sing in the Adrestian style, if you ask it of them.”

“Are you a fan of the opera?” he idly asked. The warm afternoon sun after a large meal and the soft grass tickling his bandaged palms were making him somewhat sleepy.

“I don’t know much about it,” Claude said. “Some of this is new to me too! Most of it, actually. Though I’d love to go someday, if only for the experience. What’s life without adventure, right?”

At the base of the hill, a large pole had been set up at the very center of the festivities, more than thrice the height of an average man. It was wrapped in greenery, and bouquets of summer blossoms shot up on its head in spikes, giving it a look reminiscent of a gigantic magical sceptre. It caught their attention now since it looked like preparations for some event were being done around it.

“It’s the Thyrsus.”

“The relic?!” It couldn’t be.

“Well, no, not _the_ Thyrsus, but a symbolic one. The practice of setting one up is apparently done in some parts of Gloucester County and its surrounding areas. Further east, in Riegan or Goneril, it would just be a plain mast for pole archery.”

“Ah, and the staves some of the women are holding,” he said, noting the braided vines some carried. “I suppose those are symbolic replicas as well.”

“Yeah, I think that’s part of a dance they’ll perform at twilight. I’m pretty excited to see it. But first, there’s an archery contest!”

Of course, what Leicester celebration would it be without one? They got up and dusted themselves off, then Claude took Dimitri’s hand again, to lead him down for a better look. Young men and a few women were lining up, bows and blunted arrows in their hands. The targets were little wooden birds, brightly painted, tied at different places along the giant Thyrsus pole. Had he not been told it was an archery contest, Dimitri would have thought they were just decorations.

A change in the music announced the start of the competition. The first man to step up took aim and loosed his arrow at a target near the middle of the pole. It struck true, and after he had handed off the bow, he retrieved the little bird and held it up to the cheering crowd. Having proven his worth, he approached a young lady and bowed to her. She curtsied in return, after which she let out a shriek of laughter and began to run from him. He gave chase around the pole, and the cheers grew louder when he finally caught her around the waist.

Other competitors stepped up. They were allowed three arrows each. The lower targets were simple enough for beginners, but hitting one of those wasn’t enough to draw out excitement from the audience. The highest bird, glittering gold, sat at the very tip of the swaying bouquet that jutted out from the top of the pole. It was a difficult shot – perhaps one that would be standard for a seasoned bow knight, but these contestants were village hunters or merchant militia at the most. Some tried to show off by aiming for the highest bird, but if they missed all three shots, their lovers would pretend to scorn them.

Without his gauntlets on, Dimitri could now actually feel the bowstring calluses that he had noticed on Claude’s hands during their very first brief meeting. Claude’s eyes were also narrowed, calculating, as he watched the shooting, like he was judging their technique. Obviously he was experienced in the art of archery. “Will you not compete as well?” Dimitri asked.

Claude thought on it for a moment, head cocked as he took in Dimitri’s words. Dimitri had no idea what the other man was reading from his face or what scheme he was concocting in that curious mind of his. Whatever it was, at least there was no doubt it would be interesting.

“You know, I think I will.”

Few contestants were yet to perform when Claude sauntered up to the line. He inspected the bow that he was given, tested its draw weight and aim the way Dimitri had seen professional archers do. Clearly he was correct about Claude’s experience, and clearly Claude was aiming to show off.

When he was offered the three arrows, he took up only one and held it up for Dimitri and the crowd to see. Cheers for the previous contestant died down, but a sense of anticipation washed over the gathered people upon witnessing Claude’s showmanship. It was his turn.

He threw a wink to Dimitri and then, in one continuous motion, nocked, drew, and loosed his single arrow in a high arc. It flew well above the pole, to the disappointment of many. But then, in the descent, it sunk through the bouquets and thudded into the grass below.

Claude leisurely made his way over, and when he pulled the arrow out of the ground, everyone could see that the little golden bird was speared upon it.

“Ach, of course it’d be a Goneril boy!” an old woman shouted. Once she’d broken the silence, cheers erupted from the crowd and the minstrels began playing a victory tune. The golden bird had fallen. The hunt was over.

Dimitri stood rooted to the spot, though he was grinning wildly. Men of Faerghus appreciated shows of strength, and he was no exception. Claude had acquitted himself wonderfully.

His companion returned and bowed to him.

“That was masterful, Claude. You were truly skilled.”

“Thank you, but… don’t I get a prize?”

The smile fell from Dimitri’s face. “You would truly chase me like a village girl?”

“If that’s what you’re into…?”

“No.”

His eyes closed as he shrugged. “Fair enough. It was worth a try.”

In that moment when Claude looked away, Dimitri bolted. Most of the village girls hadn’t put up much of a fight, though a few led their hunters on a merry chase, nimbly dodging around the pole. Still, they all allowed themselves to be caught. Dimitri, however, sprinted for the hills, laughter springing freely from his lips when he heard the shouts behind him.

“Your boy’s getting away! Go, go!” They goaded Claude on in the chase. Claude leapt after him, swift as a deer. He ran like the wind with the antlers and flowers still on his head, making him seem truly ethereal.

Dimitri’s legs were longer, and his strides larger, but Claude steadily gained on him regardless. He’d made it halfway up the largest hill when he was suddenly tackled from behind and the two of them sent rolling, tumbling down.

“Ahaha! Haha! I can’t-- believe-- you did that!” Claude laid on top of Dimitri, laughing into his shoulder. His words came out between harsh breaths.

“I thought-- you could use-- a challenge!”

Dimitri’s rose garland had flung off somewhere as he ran, and Claude’s was barely hanging on to the antlers. They lay there in silence, waiting for their pounding hearts to calm, but that seemed a difficult task when he had Claude above him, framed by the light of the setting sun.

Claude was the first to break the silence. “You’re… really something, you know that?”

“I could say the same to you.”

When they leaned into each other this time, and Claude’s eyes grew half-lidded, his lips parted just so, Dimitri did not resist. The kiss was soft, slow, chaste. Unforgettable.

In a while, they got up and danced around the Thyrsus. At twilight, the maidens with their staves of vines and flowers twirled around the pole and sang blessings for the season. The whole thing was then set ablaze, and the dancing and revelry continued into the night.

They sneaked kisses throughout. After the first, the dam was broken and they could not return to mere flirtations. It was late when the festivities wound down, and although the bonfire still burned and drunken ballads were still being sung beside it, the day had come to an end.

Dimitri escorted Claude back to the tea shop and said his reluctant goodbyes.

“You’re heading back? How will you get into the monastery? The gates will be closed.”

“I’ll, ah, ahem. I’ll have to leave my horse at the secondary stables outside the gates and… scale the walls.”

“Can you _do_ that?”

“Suffice to say, I have a friend who has been known to sneak out for late night trysts, and I have found his secret routes.”

“What if you get caught though? Like you caught your friend. These routes don’t seem so secret anymore.”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.”

“Stay the night, then. You can still make it to lessons if you return at dawn.”

A tempting offer, but Dimitri resolved himself against it. “It would be improper,” he said, shaking his head. “I won’t tarnish your reputation in such a way.”

Claude raised one eyebrow, amused. “I’m already known to be eccentric. It’s hardly a secret, and I don’t care. There’s no reputation _to_ tarnish, unless you mean your own.”

“But I would care. No one shall speak ill of you if I can help it.”

“So sweet, Dima… I still think it’d be easier if you stayed, but if you insist…”

“I will keep you in my thoughts.”

* * *

From his rooftop perch, Claude kept an eye on Dimitri as he rode out of town, following the moonlit figure far into the night. He brought a hand to his lips and felt a shiver run down his spine as the memories returned. His chest was cold and hot, hollow and full all at once.

He whispered to the stars, “What have I done?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo, have an extra long chapter for the holidays and Dimitri’s birthday coming up soon!
> 
> Dimitri is not well, but he’s still trying his best. He a good boi. Good pupper, best fren. Just maybe the nice doggo got kicked too many times and is now at risk of going feral. D:
> 
> I have this theory about the main characters representing different coping mechanisms…  
Edelgard – anger, directing pain outward  
Dimitri – depression, directing pain inward  
Claude – avoidance, running away and being a dodgy bastard  
Byleth – repression, locking that shit up so tight you forget you’re actually a goddess
> 
> They’re all conveniently color-coded, too! A lot of supporting characters also offer different variations/combinations of these themes. So… yeh. Just thought I’d explain the headcanon I’m working with since the mental health aspect will become more important going forward. I don’t hate and will not bash any characters even if some will be presented in unflattering ways. It’s how I interpret them dealing with their various traumas based on canon.
> 
> Anyway, more ClaudeQuest coming up next. I’ve been neglecting his part of the story because it involves developing more practical aspects of the world. Lore I can do. (Me, singing “Now Is the Month of Maying” in the shower in December: “wHAT IF tHyRsuS waS a MAyPole??) Politics and sneaky spy stuff is hard though. Ehe. ^^;


	7. Letters From Dimitri

The morning after the festival, Claude began to take stock of his options. He put incense in the small censer he had brought with him and lit a small flame inside. It was bronze rather than pure silver, and far less ornate than the ones he was used to using back in the palace, but it was all he could get away with here. He didn’t often pray, and when he did his disbelief in the benevolence of gods made it seem insincere, but the ritual was good for meditation, which was good for helping him keep a clear head as his plans grew ever larger and more complex.

As the smell of sandalwood began to permeate the room, Claude closed his eyes and recited the mantra that was used for seeking the truth. _Steady as the earth, deep as the water, free as the wind, bright as the flame which illuminates your path…_ When his mind was clear, he asked himself if he had made a mistake, and if so, how he could turn it around. He asked if his actions remained true to his heart.

At first there was a burst of shame, though muted by the distance provided by meditation. He couldn’t believe he’d been so careless. It was true that nothing great could be accomplished without taking risks, and he was very willing to take those risks for worthwhile gains, but this was just… He’d been foolish and let himself get caught up in the moment. He had handicapped himself by starting something with Dimitri.

Now, if he bound himself to this one friend, there would be no way to form alliances with Dimitri’s enemies, who were many. Perhaps one of them would have offered him a faster, more guaranteed way to achieve his goals, but if he were to reach out to them in this state, if they knew how close he could get to the prince they would likely ask him to take Dimitri’s life in exchange.

Gulshan had warned him about this, when she said he wasn’t suited for life as a spy. “Your heart is too soft. It will not harden correctly; it will shatter before then.”

Was he willing to assassinate someone for the greater good? As it was before, the answer was still yes, if he had to. If he could protect his allies by fighting dirty, he absolutely would. But could he knowingly kill a genuinely good person? Could he betray his ideals to such an extent?

It just wasn’t possible.

His dream was already a never-ending one. To make the world a kinder place one step at a time. To open people’s hearts to one another an honest conversation at a time. People from all over the world coming together in a grand feast, filling their bellies with good food and their minds with brilliant ideas.

Born to a position of privilege and power, it was Claude’s duty to push for the peace treaties that could make such a dream world possible, but then it would be up to the people themselves to make it happen. He had no faith in gods, because he reserved it all for the goodness in men.

As for Dimitri, he was a true friend now, and Claude had so few of those. He could never raise his hand against a friend. Allying with those who wished such a good man dead? Such partnerships could not be trusted. They would just as quickly turn on Claude, or he would be forced to turn on them to prevent a greater catastrophe.

So… no, it wasn’t possible. A dream as grand as his was worth accomplishing the right way, even if that meant the long way. Bitterly, struggling to quash his impatience, he thought this was true even if it meant he could never see his dream come to fruition within his own lifetime, whether he died young or toiled until he was old and gray. He didn’t wish for the long game to be quite that long, but perhaps it had to be. Doing any of this by force would only create more resentment later on, which could build up and erupt into war – the ultimate undoing of everything he was fighting for.

In a way, it was better that he had discovered an ally so early on. The path into the Kingdom was cleared… And then he had his answer. It wasn’t wrong of him to dream of love and friendship overcoming all odds. Dimitri wasn’t a mistake.

Claude’s eyes snapped open and he reached for his quill and began to pen messages. To Derdriu to announce his brief return, to the School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad to request their services, and to Dimitri for his official endorsement.

The first two were straightforward in their tone. With Dimitri, he struggled to balance a formal business request without seeming cold about their personal relationship. _I could just be using you to sink my trade routes into the Kingdom_, his own words came back to haunt him. After a few false starts, the letter itself ended up bland. Claude tore a slip of scrap paper and tucked it into the folds. On this he wrote,

> _Heading to Derdriu and then Fhirdiad. It’ll be some time before we can meet again. I’ll be thinking of you until then._

Before he could second-guess his soppy word choice, or even sign the damn thing, Claude shoved it all into an envelope and sealed it. Three letters sat on his desk, and it was a struggle not to write a fourth to be delivered through many hands in back alleys to the place beyond the mountains he still called home in his heart.

It had been nearly a year since he had last seen his parents or had any correspondence with them whatsoever. He wanted to see them, and Nader, and Gulshan… So many others too. How many years would it be before he could return home, if he ever could? What if they passed without his knowledge, while he was stuck here, unable to ease their pain? What if he never saw them again?

So many months had passed, and yet his journey was only beginning. The rift between two nations seemed so wide, and he understood now why as a child his mother always brushed aside mentions of her family on the other side of the mountains. She hadn’t wanted to think they were so far away. It had seemed to her like there would always be time to visit, but now her brother was dead and her father was soon to follow. Perhaps her father would pass before she ever made it back to Fódlan. Perhaps she never intended to return after all, or felt as if she couldn’t do so until she had done enough to change Almyra. Perhaps Claude, too, would fall into this trap, and never feel worthy of returning home unless he could reform all of Leicester, then all of Fódlan. It would never be enough.

He got up and shook his head of these thoughts. The three letters he took down to the town post office to be sent out with the day’s mail. He paid a pegasus courier extra to ensure the letter to his grandfather would arrive before he did. In Derdriu he was supposed to have _manners_, or the Duke would send etiquette tutors to scold him again.

When he returned to the outpost, he announced his leave to the workers, and left Luca in charge of the shop.

“Me?” Luca asked. He was surprised at being chosen, despite Claude having hinted before that someday he would be left to run this branch of the company. He was young enough to be trained for the position, and had acquaintances among the merchant-born students of Garreg Mach besides. They spent the day organizing supplies while Claude quizzed Luca on tea blends and their components and flavor profiles. When he was satisfied with Luca’s growing knowledge of tea, he moved on to herbs and spices, their culinary and medicinal uses.

“No more,” Luca groaned, an hour or so into their studies.

“We’ll make an apothecary of you yet,” Claude said.

“An apothecary, huh. And here I’d thought my fate was to be born and die a simple caravanner.”

“Nonsense! A merchant is the most mobile class you can be. Nobles have their castles and troops, and farmers have their homesteads, but there’s _freedom_ in this life that few others can offer. You can travel anywhere, sell anything, _be_ anyone you want to be from one side of the country to the next without the people you encounter tying you down to past versions of yourself. You can reinvent yourself however you want. And unlike a mercenary, violence isn’t part of the job description. There’s no limit to the places and people and wonders you could see if…” He sighed, thinking perhaps he’d pushed his views onto Luca too quickly. “Though if you want to stick to the old routes and the old products, that’s fine too.”

There was an awkward silence for a while, until Luca looked up with a shaky smile. “I suppose I hadn’t seen it that way, having been born into the life. The big merchant families, the bosses you know, they want their kids to be knights so that they can serve nobles and maybe marry them someday. Gain a family Crest or something. We’re always told that’s the only proper thing to aspire to. But I guess you… ran away from something like that, right? Guess the grass is always greener on the other side and nobility’s not all it’s cracked up to be either.”

“Y-yeah, something like that. Anyway, I’m glad I can count on you. And if a letter arrives from the monastery granting us permission to sell at their marketplace, you can take a cart up there. Maybe see some old friends.”

Claude left Luca deep in thought. In all honesty, the plight of commoners wasn’t a topic he’d thought much on as a sheltered prince. He’d had to change a lot of his thinking in his travels, and his opinions on these matters were far from being fully formed. It was something to keep in mind for the future.

A response from Dimitri arrived before the end of the day. The town postman had been visited by one of the monastery owls with a note tied to its leg. Claude waited until after dinner to read it, sequestered in his room, away from anyone who might see his face contort into all sorts of stupid expressions.

> _Dearest Claude,_
> 
> _I hope this letter finds you before you leave. I have sent word ahead to the School of Sorcery to expect you soon, and I sincerely hope they will be able to aid you. However, as much as I enjoy our talks of trade, when it comes to you I must confess that my mind has been elsewhere of late. I often think of dancing with you, or having tea with you. It has hardly been a day since we parted, and already I find myself wishing to see you again. I shall eagerly await your return, whenever that may be, and in the meantime content myself with merely writing to you._
> 
> _Yours,_
> 
> _Dimitri_

The squirming uncertainty at what he was attempting with Dimitri was met with a bright affection for the silly man. Claude failed to suppress a snicker, which grew into a full laugh as he imagined Dimitri dashing off to scribble out this letter in time for the evening mail call. He had to have written it without much thought, otherwise he would have considered the lack of addresses to send his letters in the places Claude would be.

There was time to leave a note for Dimitri with an address in Derdriu, but Claude purposely did not pen it.

Derdriu was two days away by wyvern, and easy enough to navigate as it was at the end of a straight path northeast following the hills that separated the Kingdom from the Alliance. As a single rider, gliding under the shadows of clouds, he might have appeared as a large bird to anyone who happened to look up as he passed. And when Claude looked down, he felt a similar sort of awe to when he was stargazing.

Humans truly were so small in the grand scheme of things. Even princes, even kings.

He patted Precious on her neck and leaned over to touch his forehead to her scales. With the wind rushing past, she couldn’t hear him apologize for pushing her so hard, but at least she could feel the rumble of his voice. She growled back, low in her throat, that no apology was needed.

They stopped overnight in Daphnel before picking up the journey once more on the following day, making sure to veer sharply to the east once they approached Ailell. Nothing good could come of a place that earned the name “Valley of Torment”, so Claude guided his mount around and approached Derdriu from the south.

As he flew closer to the city, he saw more wyvern riders, and called out to them, “Ho!” as was custom when passing, making sure to raise his right arm to signal friendly intent. Most were couriers or city watch. Solo travelers like himself were few and far in between. It took money and resources to train up a wyvern, and those who had that in abundance tended to travel in the company of armed guards.

He landed at the Riegan estate with ease, Precious glad to finally roost in a proper aerie, and was immediately sent to meet with his grandfather. No doubt there would be plenty of days ahead of him for practicing his courtly manners because “You are a Riegan, so act like it!”

There were too many things to be done in the city – connections to make and maintain, updates to give and receive… He wanted to pick his grandfather’s mind about Fhirdiad and perhaps come up with a plan or a persona to adopt when going about his dealings there, but in return the Duke would have him sit in on all manner of meetings for whatever reason.

“You got your penchant for scheming from me,” he once told Claude. “A pity neither of my children inherited it directly.”

Being a piece in someone else’s board was uncomfortable, but such were the intertwined games of nobility, where everyone was simultaneously game master and pawn. A few days of this exhausting game wore on, in which Claude witnessed enough genteel bickering for a lifetime. Through this he gained more insight into why his mother would have wanted to run away from this life, and why uncle Godfrey had insisted he wasn’t a player until he’d been driven off the board entirely.

He received a letter while in Derdriu. Well, he had received multiple letters pertaining to the business he was running, but only one personal letter sent in through the company address. It was, of course, from Dimitri.

Claude picked it up from the warehouse in the dock ward and slipped it into an inner breast pocket. He considered taking it back to the estate to read, but impatience got the better of him. The sun was beginning to set and gleam off the waves; the sea birds were calling. It was much better out here than in the stuffy gilded manor… though as soon as this thought crossed his mind, Claude cringed at how he’d set himself up as a character in a romance novel, to sigh over a man’s words while the salt breeze blew through his hair.

Well, this area of the docks was probably safer than the manor, anyway. It was owned by the family, but unlike the manor there were no spies patrolling under the guise of maids and butlers. Claude slipped into the shadow of the cargo ship that had arrived this morning from Almyra. It was empty now, the goods having been moved into the warehouse and the crew just recently gone out to enjoy themselves in town. He settled at the edge of the dock to read, shoes off and toes dipped into the water.

> _Dear Claude,_
> 
> _First, I must apologize. I’ve been told that perhaps my previous letter was too heavy handed. Please tell me if I have made you uncomfortable. I’m so sorry for any transgressions I may have made. I’m aware that my social standing can make it difficult for others to say no to me. Pressuring you into courtship is the last thing I wish to do. It’s no excuse, but I want you to know it wasn’t intentional. I’m not the most experienced when it comes to these sorts of things._
> 
> _The more I write, the worse it sounds. Let me leave it at this, then. Claude, I have come to value your friendship, though our acquaintance is still new. I’m beginning to understand why I can’t stop thinking of you, though it is perhaps too early to put those feelings into words. Where we go from here, I will leave up to you._
> 
> _Your friend,_
> 
> _Dimitri_

Dimitri had spent much more time on this one, clearly. The tone was very different. He was no longer effusively proclaiming his infatuation, but in some ways this was even more improper than before. Such apologies and declarations of friendship for a commoner would be enough to cause a scandal in even the most liberal of Alliance houses. Yet here was Dimitri, being so… so himself. So honest, so everything Claude wasn’t.

Claude smiled at the thought of Dimitri’s struggles. It wasn’t a sadistic joy so much as it was finding himself genuinely charmed at the bumbling attempts of the Crown Prince of Faerghus to court Claude’s flamboyant merchant persona.

He folded the letter in half, but froze before he could fold it in half again. There was the slightest swish of air from behind that gave him pause.

The dagger at his belt came up – _kling!_ – to meet the blade coming from behind.

Claude spun up into a standing position to face his attacker. On top of the stout wooden pole of the dock piling behind him was a girl in loose Almyran linens, face veiled as an assassin. They took stock of each other while their blades still touched, until she slowly pulled hers back.

“Good to see you’re not losing your touch.”

“Yasmin. Good to see you’re as annoying as ever,” Claude grumbled in response.

“Are you courting a lord or something?” Yasmin pointed to the letter with her knife. “He must be silly or full of himself if he thinks any title he holds could be higher than yours.”

Claude stuffed the crumpled letter back into his breast pocket. “That is none of your business.”

“All of your business is my business!” she said somewhat petulantly. “You shouldn’t have left without me in the first place. The crown prince should not be wandering foreign lands alone. What will happen if you die?”

“The crown prince has _every_ right to be wandering alone. It’s a rite of passage. Would you have me called a coward to skip this tradition because my weak, _F__ó__dlish_ constitution couldn’t handle it?”

“I only mean that your father would go to war to avenge you. Or have you forgotten how brutally he has executed every assassin sent after you? And this time your mother will not stop him. If Fódlan is stupid enough to take our prince from us, we will take all of Fódlan.”

_A__nd what if your prince decides he belongs in __F__ó__dlan?_ he thought but did not say.

“Wow, you sound just like your mother.” Claude made a face of disgust. “I know, I know. I’ll be careful not to set off an international incident. Were you just sent here to remind me?”

Yasmin crossed her arms over her chest. “You were my blade brother under Mother Gulshan. I am here to protect you.”

“Yasmin?”

“Yes?”

“You’re a child. Go home.”

“I am no child! I’ve had my first kill!”

“You’re thirteen, a child. _Go home._” He pointed at the ship which she had obviously stowed away on. When she made no move to go, Claude began walking out of the shadows and back to town.

Yasmin scurried after him, pulling the cloth away from her face. “I can be your servant.”

“No.”

“Or… or I can be your _servant_, if that’s more believable. I heard the sailors say Gonerils like sticking their dicks in Almyran kids.”

“Whoa, what? Okay, no, _definitely _not that.”

She smirked, satisfied at having unnerved him. “I can pass as your sister, if you are so squeamish about having a servant. Look here, I have been avoiding the sun for months. I’m almost as pale as you!” She lifted her bare arm for inspection.

They came to the edge of the dock ward where the sailors’ taverns began to meld into the central business district. Here was where it became dangerous to be Almyran. With a curl of his fingers, Claude signaled for her to be careful if stepping beyond this point.

“Just… stay out of my way, okay shrimp?”

“Okay, brother,” she said, switching to stilted Fódlish. “Tell me who, and I will stab.”

* * *

Another letter arrived in Fhirdiad, care of the School of Sorcery. It was waiting for him when he arrived, but it wasn’t in reply to the letters Claude sent back to Dimitri in Derdriu. It was an official notice for the school, first and foremost, that Prince Dimitri of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus would be accompanying the Knights of Seiros in quelling the recent rebellion incited by Lord Lonato of Gaspard. Notices would also have been sent to the Castle and other important Kingdom institutions, and news spread through the region so that the common folk could avoid traveling through those areas where battles might occur.

The part meant for Claude was merely an addendum, not even signed.

> _Claude,_
> 
> _By now you will have heard of the rebellion in Gaspard territory. It seems that there will be bloodshed. Stay a while in Fhirdiad if you can, or give the area a wide berth if you must travel. Be safe._

It was an inconvenience that battles had erupted to the south, directly in the way of his path back toward the monastery, but he was lucky not to have been caught in the middle of it. He was lucky, also, not to be sent into the fighting like Dimitri would be.

Of all the letters he had received from Dimitri, it was this little note that swayed his heart the most. The words themselves said the least, but in them was the knowledge that Dimitri thought of him before leaving for battle.

Next time, he thought, perhaps he could find a way to join the fight.

“You too, Dimitri. Be safe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hilda unfortunately can’t be Claude’s retainer in this world, so I gave him a fun-sized assassin. XD
> 
> I hope I’ll be able to pick up the pace on this again, but yeah, I came back from vacation and was just “bwuh wha was i doin?” for a while, then I got a really nasty cold and spent two weeks or so just writhing around in pain. But I’m good now, so all the pathetic flopping and whimpering is just me not knowing how to wrangle this fic.


	8. Letters From Claude

It was very late by the time Dimitri was able to make it back to the monastery on the night of the Garland Festival. He navigated the road by moonlight at first, but as the cover of trees grew thicker into the forest, he was forced to light a lamp.

The monastery gates were no doubt closed by now, though the guard station further down was still lit. The two guards on night watch barely glanced at him before they went back to their game of cards.

“Had a good night?” one asked as Dimitri tethered his mount.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Don’t worry,” said the other, “it happens every year. You’re not the first and you certainly won’t be the last to come back past curfew.”

Dimitri bowed and mumbled his thanks, but they just waved him off. He circled around up a small side path that would place him directly beneath the sauna. He felt around the wall for the grooves that were said to be present around this area, hand and foot holds worn into the stones from generations of restless students. Sighing, he grumbled, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I can’t believe it either,” said a familiar voice behind him.

Dimitri shut his eyes to center himself. Wearily, he turned to acknowledge Sylvain with a nod. “Good evening,” he said, and began to climb.

Sylvain followed behind, but unfortunately not even the sheer physical exertion of pulling themselves straight up a stone wall could stop his babbling. “I didn’t expect such swift progress. From frigid prince--”

“Ex-excuse me? I’ve never been frigid!”

“From prudish and naive--”

“Sylvain!”

“All right,_ innocent_, then. Ah, I remember the days when Your Highness was still_ innocent_, but now who is this bold young man, sneaking back in the dead of night after spending the entire day within a lover’s arms. Or was it between his legs?”

“It was_ nothing_ like that,” Dimitri said as he heaved himself over the side. He tumbled over into the already mangled bushes behind the sauna, breathing a bit heavily. The heat he felt in his cheeks was brushed off as a result of the midnight workout.

A moment later, Sylvain flipped over and landed next to him with a grunt. “I want all the details, Your Highness.”

“_Good night_, Sylvain.”

He began walking the short distance to the dorms, Sylvain’s soft laughter echoing from behind.

Sleep was hard to come by at first. Dimitri laid on his bed for quite some time, running the day’s events through his mind. Claude’s coy smile, his inviting eyes, his skill with a bow, the lithe strength of his body as they ran. His dark wavy hair mussed from the wind and roses and antlers, splayed across a bright green hill. The way his breath hitched as they kissed.

Even Sylvain’s teasing and the prospect of more to come in the morning couldn’t dampen his mood, and eventually Dimitri fell into a slumber feeling, for once, at peace.

* * *

The first letter arrived the morning after. Well, in the early afternoon as they broke for lunch. A knight came into the dining hall with the daily mail for the students.

Of course the letters and packages that weren’t picked up at this time would be delivered to the dorms, and those that were deemed too sensitive for common post would arrive through more discreet means, but the monastery encouraged self-sufficiency among its noble students, which meant learning to pick up their own mail, among other things. The only concession Archbishop Rhea made for students of noble backgrounds was the option to pay more for a private room on the second floor of the dorms. Otherwise, the nobles did the same chores and ate the same foods as their classmates.

Dimitri believed in this system wholeheartedly, and if he were any other noble in less danger of assassination attempts, he might even have insisted on a first floor room. That was not feasible for a prince, so he settled for doing his share of the chores without complaint and always picking up his mail in person if he was there when it arrived.

It wasn’t uncommon for him to receive mail, but as he sat back down at the lunch table, something about his expression must have tipped off Sylvain that today was different.

“You’re not going to open that?” he asked.

Dimitri was halfway to tucking the letter into his breast pocket. He paused for a second too long, and it would be far more suspicious if he denied the request while saying it was nothing in the same breath. The letter was brought back out, and the wax seal broken with the tip of his finger.

“It’s nothing much, just a business proposal we discussed.”

“From your merchant boy.”

“As you said, he’s a merchant wanting to do business with Fhirdiad. Of course we would correspond.” Dimitri pulled out the papers and laid them out. He was both glad and inexplicably pained to note that they were every bit as professional as he had been gambling on, due to the formal way the envelope was addressed.

When he opened the envelope again to place the letter back inside, a small strip of paper fluttered out. It held only three sentences, and the last one echoed in his mind in Claude’s voice. _I’ll be thinking of you until then. I’ll be thinking of you._ _Thinking of you._

Dimitri felt his skin burst into flames. He snatched the note and the letters and stuffed them into the envelope and then into his breast pocket, crushing a few corners in his haste. He’d have to place them under something heavy to flatten them out.

“Don’t,” he preemptively said to Sylvain, who held his hands up in mock surrender.

The other Blue Lions pretended not to notice, as they often did when he did something not befitting his station. The atmosphere surrounding their group was a bit more subdued today, anyway. Ingrid was still hesitant around him despite the quiet mutual apologies they spoke before class began that morning, and Felix had wolfed down his food and made for the training grounds before he could see any of this play out. Usually Dimitri would want them to stand up to him, but this time he was glad not to receive any criticism.

As soon as classes ended, he rushed to his room, hoping to write an adequate response in time for the evening mail call. It was his only chance to get something to Claude before he left, so he wrote quickly and kept it short. He thought he could slip it into mail collection unnoticed, but alas… There was Sylvain yet again, delivering a few letters of his own.

“For my lovely ladies out there.” Sylvain winked as he held up his letters before dropping them in the collection box. Then, glancing at Dimitri’s, he asked, “Did you put a bit of your cologne on the paper?”

“No, and I didn’t use any of your lines either.”

“Good. We’ve established that such words are dangerous for an amateur like yourself. What did you say, then?”

“I merely spoke the truth, that I remember our time together fondly, and that he is in my thoughts.”

“Ugh! Shot through the heart!” Sylvain dramatically clutched at his chest.

“Is it so funny?”

“Your Highness, you’ve got to play this cool. Come on too strongly and you might chase him away. Appear too eager and he might think you owe him marriage.”

Dimitri had just dropped his letter into the box, but he suddenly began to doubt what he had written. “Is that truly a concern?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Men in our positions, nobles with _crests_”, he said in disdain, “have to be careful when playing around. Sometimes a girl has trouble saying no to me because of the difference in our stations. It’s no skin off my back – I just don’t start anything with someone who isn’t enthusiastic about it – but for you? I’m not sure you’d recognize the signs. Best to clear things up as soon as possible.”

“I can’t see any woman struggling to say no to you, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

Sylvain chuckled, but it was humorless. His smile didn’t reach his eyes. He patted Dimitri on the back and left, and Dimitri began to wonder if Sylvain’s womanizing behavior didn’t hurt himself as much as it hurt his lovers. Could Sylvain truly be so masochistic? It was the strangest feeling.

Perhaps he would take that advice in the future, but this letter was already posted. He couldn’t very well dig through all the outbound mail to get it back. He would just have to wait for Claude’s response. Still, he couldn’t shake the thought of the wording being too… ardent. He should have “played it cool” as Sylvain said.

Dimitri researched to find the address of the tea company and sent a second letter there the next day, and then all he could do was wait. Claude’s response came three days later. This time, he immediately left the dining hall after getting his mail, and proceeded to his room to be alone as he read it. The envelope was quite thick, and when he opened it there were indeed multiple sheets inside. The topmost paper was folded separate from the rest.

> _Dear Dimitri,_
> 
> _I received both of your letters, and there’s no need to apologize. I’ve lived among nobles all my life and have no problem asserting myself when necessary. If I didn’t want your attention, you’d know it._
> 
> _On the subject of letters, however, I have a confession to make. As I said, I received both of your letters, but I chose not to respond at first because I wanted to see if you would figure out how to write to me in Derdriu. I didn’t mean for you to doubt yourself._
> 
> _It may not seem like it, and I won’t fault you for not believing me, but I am also not very experienced with these kinds of relationships. Friendship is a good place to start._
> 
> _Friends speak casually with each other, right? I hope you don’t mind that I rambled a lot, but it’s lonely flying all the way to Derdriu, and I kept seeing things that made me think, “Wow, Dimitri would love this!” I tried writing a normal letter, or as normal of a letter as one can write on wyvernback, but it turned partly into a traveler’s journal. Hope that’s okay!_
> 
> _Your talkative friend,_
> 
> _Claude_

The other sheets were just as Claude said. He’d attempted to write a letter while traveling, but went off on many tangents. He wrote of the scenery, of the places he flew over and interesting pieces of folklore tied to them. He wrote of how he loved traveling with Precious, but was also annoyed by her, and how Dimitri should consider getting a wyvern since he got along with them so well, and perhaps their wyverns could be friends! It was a glimpse into the mind of that mad alchemist Dimitri had first seen some weeks prior, and it was _adorable_.

Dimitri couldn’t stop smiling when he returned to afternoon lessons, which garnered him a few curious looks, but no one tried to pry any further. It wasn’t until they went to the training grounds to spar that it became a problem.

The current state of his relationship with Felix wasn’t good in any sense of the word, but Felix never turned down a spar. Dimitri was his favored sparring partner within their house because he knew he wouldn’t have to hold back. They always partnered up for the first round of afternoon sparring. Except today, he took one look at Dimitri and scoffed, heading for Sylvain instead.

“Whoa, hey, you aren’t going to spar with His Highness?” Sylvain asked. “I don’t know if anyone can handle you two before you’ve had a go at each other first.”

Dimitri shuffled over to partner with Dedue. In the corner of his eye he could see Felix’s lips curled in the way they sometimes did to warn of an upcoming tongue lashing. Dimitri tensed his shoulders to keep his inevitable flinch from becoming noticeable.

“The boar’s in a mating rut. Disgusting.”

“Felix!” Ingrid sharply reprimanded him.

This angered Felix even more, and he turned to address Dimitri directly. “You know what you are, yet you can still think of _those_ sorts of things? You’ll be the death of him.”

Dedue, also, took a step forward to defend Dimitri.

“No, it’s all right, let’s just get started,” Dimitri said, motioning for them to get back into positions. The three did so reluctantly, but their bad mood soured that of the rest of the class.

Nothing about this situation was good. Normally, Dimitri would brush off Felix’s comments, even if it was with great difficulty. But this time it wasn’t just about him, it was also about Claude. If there was anyone who knew what Dimitri would be like as a lover, it was Felix.

Claude was not his first crush or first kiss. He would not be Dimitri’s first love if what they had ever progressed that far. His first crush was Edelgard, who taught him to dance. Perhaps it could have become something more, in time, if she had been allowed to stay. Still, he cherished the time they had spent together even if she didn’t feel the same about him.

His first love was Felix, who taught him to be gentle. It wasn’t an immediate spark of interest, like the way he’d been taken with Edelgard. It was a slow thing that grew through years of companionship, through visits and extended stays at each other’s homes, and letters when they were apart. Felix was so kind as a child, and cried so easily. Dimitri learned what it was like to want to wrap someone up in his embrace and protect them from all the horrors of the world. When his strength began to manifest, he learned to control it so he could keep holding Felix.

They kissed only twice and, looking back on it now, each time had been an ill omen. The first was on the eve of the Tragedy, when they had overheard their fathers briefly discussing a possible marriage contract between their families. Felix could not be a wife or a queen, but if they could not find a suitable noblewoman for Dimitri, a prince consort for a spouse was a viable choice. They would have to find a surrogate for children, of course, and their fathers went on discussing details while the sons, eavesdropping from around the corner, looked at each other in shock.

They quickly scurried away to Dimitri’s room and shyly took the measure of each other. They had grown since the last time they’d visited, limbs getting longer and voices beginning to crack. “What if we’re not compatible in that way?” Felix asked. So to put it to the test, they clumsily smashed their lips together. It turned out that they were quite compatible, at least in Dimitri’s childish estimation, but nothing came of it then because their world burned to ashes the day after.

The second time… The second time was when they finally connected again before their maiden battle. It’s not that they hadn’t met at all in the years between, but Felix tried to avoid Dimitri whenever he could after the Tragedy. His grief was too strong, and he had decided to become a new person, someone hardened enough to survive on his own without Glenn to help shoulder the burden of the Fraldarius name.

Rodrigue never brought up the marriage arrangements he’d seemed so eager to make before. Felix was the Fraldarius heir now, not the spare. He had to become the next Shield of Faerghus, and the Shield could not be a man’s consort.

As for Felix, he probably thought Dimitri’s comfort and care would weaken him, so he cut Dimitri out of his life and let the both of them suffer alone. Dimitri couldn’t exactly blame him for it, though there were times he selfishly wished Felix would turn away from that path and let things return to the way they used to be, if only for a little while. Since they could not have forever in their futures, could they not have now?

When they met again the night before the battle, Dimitri was able to see how strong Felix had become. His swordsmanship had grown by leaps and bounds, and he no longer cried at the sight of blood. They confided in each other of how uneasy they felt at being made to fight farmers, and how irresponsible it was of the local lords to lead their people to certain death. In that moment, he first felt passion. They kissed then, under the moonlight, in shared sorrow and hope.

And when the day came, Dimitri ruined it all by having a breakdown on the battlefield. He couldn’t handle all the stress and guilt, and so he blanked out. He let his madness take over and became a beast. Anyone who came at him, he ran through with his spear, laughing even as he cried. One after another, over and over, soldiers and farmers. They attacked. He retaliated with terrible, deadly force.

The rebellion was suppressed. They cheered for him, called him a hero, said they were proud to serve a prince who was a true lion in battle. It didn’t feel good at all, even if he smiled for their sakes. At least he had Felix to confide in later, he thought. Felix would understand. They could kiss and comfort each other and dream of a day when they would inherit the power needed to change the world.

But Felix looked at him with horror when he approached, spat and called him monster, called him boar. He cried like they were children again, and angrily wiped his tears. Instead of running into Dimitri’s arms, he turned away as if Dimitri’s touch would burn him. “These tears are not for you,” he said. “They’re for Dimitri, who is _dead_. My love died in Duscur and I didn’t even know it.”

They were over before they’d had a chance to begin.

If there was anyone who could know what Dimitri would be like as a lover, it was Felix. So when Felix said Claude would be destroyed by his love, he believed it.

His performance during that day’s sparring session was abysmal, but there was no time to dwell on it. Professor Byleth called a meeting right after to explain their new mission. The reality of the situation dawned on him then. Faerghus was unstable and would not stabilize until Dimitri took the throne, yet here he was, preoccupied with advancing a _romance_ of all things. And a doomed one, if Felix was correct.

The days thereafter were spent preparing for and marching into battle. Ashe withdrew into the cathedral and spent long hours praying to the goddess, asking her why. In the aftermath, Dimitri, too, prayed for guidance. For absolution. For a path to save his kingdom.

He received no answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few lines have been changed in the last chapter regarding the timeline. I wrote it without consulting the fabulous chart I had previously made about when certain events take place, then later went back to fix it. Claude only spends a few days in Derdriu rather than a week, and Dimitri’s letter is waiting for him in Fhirdiad.
> 
> Maybe no one noticed the timeline fuckery. I probably don’t have to… but I’m paying (way too much) attention. I might edit the prologue as well once I finally get around to playing sewer kids fun time.


	9. Linden and Birch Bark

The white roses had begun blooming in central Fódlan in the middle of the Garland Moon, and in the south earlier still. In northern Faerghus where Fhirdiad was situated, they didn’t reach their peak until the end of the month, and were still in bloom by the time the Blue Sea Moon rolled around, though their petals had begun to wilt.

Out in these woods, though, there were few wild rose bushes to begin with. The air was instead filled with a different floral scent that was more delicate, and unlike the roses it was sweet without the potential to become sickly. It seemed to be coming from the trees that were covered with tiny white blossoms, each one with a yellow many-armed starburst inside. Claude picked up a fallen branch to observe them more closely. He gave them a sniff and hummed in pleasant surprise. Behind him, Yasmin silently began to harvest a few clumps and place them in her satchel.

“Aamu, what’s this?” he asked their guide.

“Linden.” She barely glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before replying, and continued to trek through the woods as they spoke.

“Good for tea?”

“Yes, flowers and young leaves.”

“Good for healing?”

“For fever and sleep.”

Aamu was a person of few words, and she spoke with an accent unfamiliar to him. She was tall, broad-shouldered for a woman, and walked with her back unerringly straight despite wincing when she put too much weight on a bad knee. In her prime she would’ve been broader still, perhaps enough to rival most men. She was as blonde as any person Claude had seen in Faerghus thus far, though her skin was many shades darker than even his own. It usually wasn’t visible since she covered herself head to toe in a dark blue cloak trimmed with reddish-orange geometric patterns, but he’d caught glimpses of her hands as she worked.

She was a woman of Duscur – a rare thing to see in the capital, he’d been told –yet he met her at the School of Sorcery all the same. The school was home to knowledge and learned people of all kinds, even if they were careful to spin their research in the language of the Church. The professors there had welcomed Claude with open arms when they saw that he’d been personally invited by their beloved prince and had been given leave to shelter in Fhirdiad until the rebellion was cleared from southern Faerghus. While the Department of Abjuration worked on deciphering the stasis spells on the barrel he’d brought, they gave him a guest pass to the library in which he’d spent the past week buried in miscellaneous studies.

It wasn’t as useful to his political ambitions as it would have been if he’d been allowed to peruse, say, the royal archives, but even the School of Sorcery had copies of books on history and culture, especially as it pertained to different traditions in the practice of magic in the Kingdom and beyond. Claude found himself particularly intrigued by the detailed Crest trees of Faerghus nobility, which traced every known Crested noble back a thousand years to what the mythic histories claimed were the Goddess’ chosen warriors. They were like family trees, but strangely callous for a nation built on chivalry in the way crestless branches were snipped off. Pruned, perhaps, like the manufactured perfection of an ornamental shrub.

The library was so engrossing that Yasmin, his sole companion on this trip, had to threaten to set fire to the stacks to get him to leave. Even then, he was reluctant until she mentioned that the alchemists of the school employed many local herbalists to gather materials from the surrounding woods. While chasing after this new opportunity, he came across Aamu.

There were many others who wouldn’t have minded having another set of hands along to help carry supplies as they gathered, but when the librarian who’d led him to the school’s garden saw him glance in her direction, he shook his head and said, “She’s from Duscur. It’s best you leave her alone.” She was tending plants by herself while other garden staff worked in groups. The outsider.

If they had been in Leicester or anywhere near Garreg Mach, Claude might not have chanced it. Or at least he would not have approached her so openly. He couldn’t be known to consort so freely with people who had been labeled “enemies of Fódlan”, and he made sure there was plausible deniability any time he had to speak to an Almyran. But in Fhirdiad he had no reputation to uphold besides that of Prince Dimitri’s acquaintance, and the prince was a known Duscurian sympathizer, much to the consternation of his uncle the Regent and the heads of most other noble houses. It made sense for a friend Dimitri made on his misguided own, away from the “good influence” of the court, to be odd in the same way the prince was. Claude calculated that this was the correct course of action for the mask he currently wore.

“Hey,” he’d said to Aamu. “Can you teach me about the local plants?”

So now they were here. They’d set off at dawn and followed the river as it tapered into a small side stream. Along the way they’d harvested the wild thyme that grew along the riverbank, and the moss that grew between volcanic rocks on the edges of the Tailtean Plains. They were good medicine, Aamu said, for coughs and cleaning wounds.

“We could do a ‘Northwoods’ collection. Adventurous teas for adventurous palates. We braved the wilderness to bring you new tastes! Put a drawing of a snarling winter wolf on the tins, it’ll sell for a fortune among the genteel.” Claude rambled mostly to himself as they walked.

Aamu scoffed. “Linden is commoners’ tea. The trees are everywhere. No rich man will pay for it.”

“That’s only true in Faerghus, as far as I’ve seen! All the better to swindle _foreign_ rich men, wouldn’t you say? It’s all in the marketing. I’ll even split the earnings with the harvesters fifty-fifty, if you know anyone interested in potentially working for me. We could make a killing.”

“You’re not of Faerghus, then.”

“Nope! Care to take a guess where I’m from?”

“Hmph. South?”

Claude threw up his arms in feigned exasperation. “Everything’s south from here.”

“Empire, then.”

“Interesting guess. Why would you say that?”

“You have the look of one who has never seen true winter, but has witnessed too many rivals murdered in the opera house.”

Claude burst into laughter. “I suppose that’s true enough. I imagine Derdriu’s winters are quite mild in comparison. The inland sea protects us there.” He refused to respond to the latter half of her comment, though he gave her a sly smile. It was already a victory that he’d gotten her to open up this much. A little more friendliness, a little more eagerness to learn – which wasn’t feigned at all – and she would tell him so much more of the things everyone was careful not to say. Eavesdropping could only get him so far, after all.

They left the grove of linden trees and proceeded deeper into the dappled forest. After a short while, Aamu held up her hand for them to stop at a sloped area where a number of trees had been felled from a mudslide after the recent rains. The ground had grown weak here and was prone to such occurrences, as seen from the older logs that also sat there, damp and rotting for many seasons.

Aamu pointed out the patches of colorful lichens growing on the dead trees and newly exposed rocks. “Brown dye,” she said of a scaly growth on the side of a log. “Orange dye” was a bright sunburst creeping over a boulder. She turned her gray-eyed gaze to meet Claude’s directly when they came to a tree with almost hair-like yellow-green clumps attached to its bark. “Yellow dye,” she said, slicing off a chunk with her knife and tossing it to him, “and poison.”

At her wordless direction, the three of them set to work scraping and harvesting the lichen from rotting wood.

“How poisonous?” Claude asked.

“Enough to kill a wolf pack.”

“Really?”

“Kill a deer, stuff its carcass with the poison. The whole pack will die when they come to feast on the offering.”

How cruel, Claude thought, yet he couldn’t help but admire the efficiency. It was a classic wartime strategy to offer false gifts to the enemy, though it seemed unlikely for the Holy Kingdom, with its emphasis on chivalry and fair duels, to ever employ such devious tactics. Or it would be if Claude wasn’t now convinced the chivalry was a front half the time. For her to share such ideas with him, was this a message or test of some kind? Who was the hunter, and who was the wolf?

They said nothing for a while, quietly working as Claude organized his thoughts and planned his next steps. From what little he knew and had observed of the people of the north, Faerghus and Duscur both, they preferred to be direct.

“Aamu,” he called out softly once the silence became too heavy to bear. “Why are you teaching me the poisons of Duscur? Aren’t you afraid your people will be blamed if I use it to kill someone?”

Her back was to him, and she did not stop in her work. She was crouched over a fallen log. Her knife scraped rhythmically over the bark. “We are already blamed for everything. What are you truly here for, if not to learn the poisons of Duscur?”

“Do these poisons include the Tragedy?”

Aamu looked up then, unseeing, the movement so sudden that her hood fell to her shoulders and revealed her lined and weather-beaten face. She mumbled something to herself, but Claude couldn’t make out what it was. He could only pick up Duscurian words for things like _river_ and _tree_ from earlier in the day, and from her sorrow this time it must have been a prayer.

“What happened to the Duscurians after the Tragedy?” he pressed on. “The Kingdom knights couldn’t have… they didn’t try to kill _everyone_, did they? The whole country?”

What little he could glean from the history books hadn’t said anything beyond how the savages were rightfully subjugated after murdering the King and Queen Consort. The prince survived, but the rumors said he was never fully right in the mind afterward, though of course his people still loved him despite his mild delusions. There were worse things a ruler could have than misplaced compassion. It was discomfiting to hear of Dimitri being spoken of in such a way, like a wayward pet, and something about it all just seemed wrong.

Yasmin came over and tried to kick Claude in the shins. When he dodged, she tried to stomp on his feet. “My brother is stupid. Of course they tried. Leaving your enemies alive only gives them chances for revenge.”

He shot her a pointed look. Yasmin remembered very well how it was only by Claude’s mercy that she lived. She’d been a wild and desperate thing, an orphan on the streets promised a warm meal if she would but knick the Almyran prince with a poisoned blade while he was out in the markets. Fortunately he’d built up an immunity to that particular toxin and managed to subdue her on his own before the guards came, or there would have been no saving her no matter how much Claude begged.

She was only able to meet his gaze for less than a second before huffing and turning away. “Not everyone is as soft as you. The _holy_ knights wouldn’t think that way. They’d think, ‘these people are not children of our goddess, so they are okay to kill’. They’d think, ‘the Duscurians and the king who loves them are both my enemy, so I kill both and say they killed each other’.”

Aamu finally spoke up then. “It is as the little one says. The king was murdered in Duscur, but it was not our people who did it. Think. What could we gain from it?”

It did seem an obvious ploy, when Claude put his mind to it. The people of Duscur lived in decentralized villages. As a nation they had never been organized or ambitious enough to pose a threat to Faerghus, which had the most disciplined military in all of Fódlan. Perhaps no one knew who killed King Lambert, but there was no way the nobles of Faerghus could truly think Duscur peasants were the real culprits. Even a random bandit troupe was more likely.

No, what happened afterward was pure greed. King Lambert in his youth had been an avid expansionist, much to the joy of the rest of Faerghus. He’d led the charge against Sreng and wrested a sizable chunk of land from them to gift to his good friend the Margrave Gautier. He’d enforced the Kingdom’s borders against the Empire and Alliance with great zeal. There was talk of buying Leicester-made ships to mount a campaign against Albinea. And he’d been about to cut a bloody swath through Duscur when he slowly realized the people there could not fight back against a full invasion, so perhaps they could come to some sort of treaty. Perhaps Duscur could be to Faerghus what Kupala was to Leicester, or it could be a tribute-paying vassal state as Brigid was to Adrestia, but to do so required a softer touch.

This change of heart would not have sated the bloodlust of the other nobles who saw Duscur as their due. Once the king died, they would have used that as an excuse to invade and claim territory even if no one among the lords truly believed Duscur was to blame. As for King Lambert’s true killer? That was unimportant as long as the lords got what they wanted.

If enough lords were in it together, it would explain how they could convince all the commoners of their lies, and it would explain Dimitri’s frustration. Dimitri could have shouted himself hoarse on behalf of the people of Duscur and no one would listen to him because they had all agreed, made a pact, that the prince and the common folk should not learn the truth.

“We were slaughtered until the western lords realized they needed labor for their new land. My sons work in Kleiman’s camps,” Aamu said, shaking her head. “They receive no pay for it. Kleiman makes them mine the hills for ore. It is not enough that they kill us and take our land, but the survivors must die while stripping our ancestral home to its bones.”

“Does the prince know about this?” he asked just to be sure.

“Ah, the prince. The mad prince. What can he do for us? They indulged his whims to save one man of Duscur – the retainer he keeps at his side, but that is all. He has no say in Kleiman’s affairs.”

“And he knows about the… about the murders being an inside job.”

“He knows. It is what drives him mad.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Powerful men cannot stand to be impotent, in the bedroom or in politics. Your prince is the same.”

This was very worrisome. It meant Dimitri was openly positioning himself as an enemy to the western lords while knowing full well that their constant rebellions were aimed at keeping him off the throne so that he couldn’t wrest Duscur and the wealth of its resources away from their hands. Could he even hope to ascend the throne with only half the kingdom behind him? Was he really so bold, and did he really believe so strongly that righteousness would prevail if he but willed it? Was he really so _dense?_

_He’s only seventeen, _Claude reminded himself. _Same as you. Do _you_ have all your shit together? It’s probably all he can do to keep his head above the water._

Claude unfortunately didn’t have the time to infiltrate the labor camps himself, but he made a note to send a Riegan spy to keep track of the situation while establishing the Kingdom trade contracts.

“I think…” Claude paused and breathed in the woodland air, the sweet smell of linden wafting from his bag mixed with the earthiness of the forest floor. “I was going to blend a tea that represented Faerghus, since there are famous teas like Leicester Cortania and Hresvelg Blend, but nothing for the Kingdom. Linden would be an interesting base, but it’s too sweet, isn’t it? To truly represent the Kingdom, there would need to be some bitterness.”

“Come,” Aamu said. She led them to a more open part of the forest where, as the sunlight increased, so did the number of slender, silvery white trees. “Birch.”

Claude watched, fascinated, as she took her knife and scored a shallow line around the circumference of a tree at eye level, then sliced a straight line down from this ring. The papery bark curled at the vertical cut, and she peeled it outward while pushing against the trunk until a whole sheet of the outer layer popped off the tree. She _skinned a tree_, and then she rolled up that skin and stuck it whole into her pouch. So much of Faerghus was foreign, even its trees.

“Now you try.”

“I’m skinning a tree,” Claude said, slightly confused. He made the cuts and peeled back the bark as he’d seen. Lo and behold, the skin popped off the tree and he was left staring at its naked inner bark. “Aamu, why did I just skin a tree?”

For the first time since they met, Aamu’s eyes crinkled in mirth. “Bitter tea, good medicine. Brew it for the prince. May it heal his wounds and yours.”

They made their way back to the School of Sorcery in silence, each person caught up in heavy thoughts. Claude traced over what he had learned of the state of the Kingdom.

Lambert had been a warmonger whose support among the western lords had been based on promises of newly conquered land. When he turned to peace, he failed to deliver on those promises, and it was the western lords who conspired to have him assassinated so they could go through with pillaging Duscur as planned. Although… they almost surely had the help of outside forces, otherwise the eastern lords would no doubt have discovered their treachery in the ensuing investigation.

And who were these outside forces? Empire-aligned, most likely, due to proximity and history. The Empire never kept it secret that they wished to “re-unify” all of Fódlan; that it considered the other countries to be mere wayward territories. And wasn’t it the Western Church, which sat on the border of the Kingdom and Empire, that was now stirring up trouble in league with Lord Gaspard of the south?

Nevertheless, the current Regent was a useless drunk womanizer, easily deposed. He was alive due to his neutrality, and because both sides needed time to maneuver all their pieces. Dimitri had a strong following within Fhirdiad and among the eastern lords, not to mention the support of the Central Church, but his coming into power would mean the return of Duscur’s autonomy. If Claude knew anything about the nature of power and greed, he knew the Empire-backed western lords would not stand for it. His chest seized at the thought that even now, Dimitri was in battle because of their plots.

When they returned to the city, Aamu once again pulled her cloak over her head. She tossed her knife to him as they parted. “A little piece of Duscur’s _dáidu_ lives in you now. Come back if you would learn our _duodji_ as well,” she said, gesturing to intricate wood carvings on the hilt of the knife.

“I can’t take this,” he said. “It must be important to you.”

“My sons will make me another, when I meet them again.”

He couldn’t see her face as she spoke, and he doubted he would ever see it again.

* * *

There was no sign that battles had taken place on the southern plains of Faerghus when Claude flew over them on his return to Airmid Falls. Nothing much seemed to have changed in the daily lives of the villagers of Gaspard territory, except that their lord was now dead and his castle occupied by Knights of Seiros. If there was grieving and resentment, and plots to turn such emotions into support for a future coup against the allied forces of the eastern lords and the Central Church, it wasn’t visible from the skies.

He made it back to the tea shop to the news that Lorenz had come through. Their company was allowed to open a stall in Garreg Mach on market days, and in fact Luca had gone there once already, if only to set things up.

The weekend after his return, Claude made the trek up to the monastery on horseback rather than wyvern. It took longer, having to go up the winding path instead of flying directly over it, but he didn’t want to make _that_ much of a first impression on the monks. The aerie was reserved for monastery residents, anyway.

He had with him the new permit, stamped with the Archbishop’s seal, and an eclectic selection of goods. The other merchants would already have common teas for sale, and Claude was there to make friends, not business rivals. He would leave the safe options to them while cultivating the mysterious persona for himself.

The sun had just fully risen by the time everything was set up. Too few people were interested in luxury goods at this hour. The people who stopped to take a look at his offerings were mostly there to drop off weapons for smithing that they would pick up later in the day. Claude had just settled in for a lazy wait when he heard shouting from the direction of the inner gate.

Visitors weren’t allowed that way without express permission, so it could only be residents coming out. He saw three figures bickering as they came into the marketplace. Or rather, two were bickering while a third accompanied them.

“Greetings, professors!” the gatekeeper called. The silent one waved back, but the other two were too deep in their argument to notice.

“It’s much too early for this, Hanneman!” said the boldly dressed woman. She was rubbing her temples and likely had a headache. “We could do this any time, I don’t see why it has to be now!”

“Well excuse me, _Professor_ Manuela,” her colleague, likely the aforementioned Hanneman, retorted, “but _you_ were the one who insisted we should hash things out together, with full transparency. Professor Byleth and I agreed on this time, and if we did not take you along, you would miss out due to your own tardiness and then _who_ would have to hear about it but us!”

“Fine! Fine then, _Professor_ Hanneman, if only to stop your incessant _nagging_.”

They continued along in this vein. Their third companion, Byleth, was the youngest and appeared to not want anything to do with the argument, if his expression of stoic suffering was anything to go by. Some of the other merchants and smiths gave him sympathetic glances, but none moved to interrupt in any way. It seemed to be a normal enough occurrence.

Out of burning curiosity, Claude approached the stall where they stopped. He had passed it by earlier and given it no attention because nothing was on display. The two squabbling professors, however, were crowded around pointing and shouting at some listings. Claude picked up something about battle and militias and “what do _you_ need flying units for, none of your students are training for aerial combat!”

“Welcome to the Battalion Guild,” the guildmaster said to Claude. Ah, perhaps he hadn’t been as sneaky as he’d thought. The quiet young professor glanced curiously in his direction as well.

“Battalion Guild, eh. Is it different somehow from the mercenary guilds that operate in town?”

The guildmaster shrugged. “Only a bit. We have listings here that are only available to commanders affiliated with the Church of Seiros, but a civilian such as yourself would still be able to hire regular mercenary protection through us.”

“Huh.” Claude stroked his chin. How very interesting! The professors were obviously instructors of the Officers Academy, which trained, well, _military officers_. They were looking over the available troops for their students, the fledgling commanders. Claude had been continuously taking glances at the inner gate since dawn, waiting for interesting people to come out and lamenting how inefficient it was that he couldn’t go in to hunt them down himself. This opportunity wasn’t the same as having free reign over the monastery grounds, but he would take it!

Professors Manuela and Hanneman continued to argue over the lack of flight-capable units currently available for hire, and poor Professor Byleth looked like he would wander off any minute now. Claude cut in on this by asking, “What if I wanted to hire myself out? Could I do that?”

The guildmaster went deeper into the tent to grab the forms kept in the back. When he came back out, he gave Claude a long look, trying to judge his seriousness. The professors, too, looked interested at this point. Finally, he asked, “What kind of support are you offering?”

Claude smiled. “Aerial archery,” he said.

“Interesting combination…” The guildmaster’s brows rose in surprise, but he wrote it down anyway and handed the contract over for Claude to read and sign.

“_I’ll_ say.” Manuela sidled up to him and seductively put a hand near her chest. “I’ve never seen you around before. New, honey?”

“Oh, don’t scare the poor lad away,” Hanneman butted in. And suddenly they were at it again.

“Shove off, old man! I’m hiring him as a soldier, not a gigolo!”

“Well it sure sounds like the latter! Besides, you already hired out the last of the Pegasus Corps. The least you could do is leave me _one_ aerial support _individual_ – he’s not even a full battalion – for the burgeoning wyvern rider in my class.”

“Or _you_ could hire me and put us all out of our misery?” Claude asked Professor Byleth. “I’m Claude, by the way.”

The mysterious Professor Byleth was not very emotive, but he smiled just the tiniest bit. “Byleth. And sorry,” he said, voice soft but curt. “My next mission is within the monastery, no need for that much range. Maybe next time.”

He really did walk off then, leaving Claude to shout after him. “Next time! I’ll hold you to it!”

Manuela eventually suggested that they flip a coin for him, which Hanneman protested until he won, after which he crowed about it. She left in a huff. It was the most childish Claude had ever seen two middle aged professionals act, made even more surprising when he learned that Hanneman was indeed the very same Hanneman von Essar who wrote all those renowned studies on Crests. And oh, how he went off about that when he realized Claude had read his works!

Garreg Mach was turning out to be such an interesting place! So many people hiding so many things! He passed the rest of the day in a good mood even if he had to wait and _wait_ for people to come to him. The students from the Alliance came by, Lorenz to preen and Hilda to hide from chores. Raphael Kirsten came hoping to see Luca who he’d spotted the previous week, and he brought his friend Ignatz of the Victor merchant family. They stayed to chat awhile about the food and beautiful views he’d seen on his travels.

There were others too, of course. Monks and knights and nobles major and minor. It was fun socializing with people from so many corners of Fódlan, but when business slowed he found himself still glancing at the inner gate, wanting to see a certain someone who must have heard by now that he was here.

It had been a full day. The dinner bell rang for the monastery’s inhabitants, which also signaled the merchants to start packing up their remaining wares. Dimitri finally walked through the gates at this strange time, accompanied by a truly massive man behind him.

Dimitri was clearly not in good spirits. He was conflicted about something – Claude could see this right away.

“Dimitri! I have so many new Faerghus tea blends that I’d love for you to try!” he said anyway, waving them over. “Come, come… I’ve just about run out of wares, but I saved some for you.”

“Your Highness, should I leave you two alone?” asked the large man.

“Up to you, Dedue. It shouldn’t… It won’t take long.”

Dimiti refused to meet Claude’s eyes, so he turned to the other man, who was obviously the Duscurian that was mentioned to accompany the prince, and attempted to make small talk. “Your name’s _Dáidu_? It means knowledge? Skill?”

“It’s _Dedue_,” he said, eyes narrowed. The look was unfriendly, or perhaps that was just this man’s natural face. Regardless, Claude thought he detected a hint of nervousness toward himself, and he couldn’t help but poke at it to see where it led.

“Ah, of course. My mistake. I just got back from Faerghus, actually. A woman of Duscur was teaching me about the herbs there, and she would say I was still green, that I needed more _dáidu _and _duodji_ – knowledge and craftsmanship – before I could make ‘good medicine’. The language is quite difficult. Sorry I don’t have much of a hang of it.”

Dedue was visibly shaken now, though he hid it well. They both were.

Dimitri found his courage to speak then, coming to his retainer’s rescue. It was cute how they supported each other. He said, “Claude, listen. I must apologize to you, for leading you on.”

“You’re breaking up with me.” Something cold entered his belly at that revelation. Colder even than the wall of ice he’d built around his heart as soon as he saw Dimitri’s awkward gait striding toward him.

Dimitri made as if to say something, then stopped, and repeated this pattern until he finally managed to choke out a sorrowful “Yes.”

“Okay,” Claude said, smiling.

“I’m so sorry--”

“No, no need for apologies,” he said, still smiling. “It’s not like you owe me anything after a single date. We even said we were just friends, right? Thanks for letting me know before it got too far. Have a good evening, gentlemen.”

He smiled and smiled and smiled all the way out the gates and down the mountain, and nothing was wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I headcanon the people of Duscur being fantasy Sámi. Their traditional religion is polytheistic, the region is rich in resources… There are many parallels, so I’ve borrowed a few Sámi terms here. Aamu is a Finnish name. Mwahaha! Putting Europe in a blender~ Making Europe smoothies~ My search history is now all about moss and lichens and how to skin a tree.
> 
> Not much Dimitri in this chapter, but his particular brand of angst will be back soon. Hope you guys don’t mind the OCs. I suppose I could gloss over those bits with a simple “and then Claude did this cool thing with faceless NPCs and it went swell”, but I feel like that would be denying him the opportunity to show growth in an environment outside of the monastery’s little microcosm. Him being curious and out there and having this love for encountering new things is important to his character, and sometimes he needs a guide so he doesn’t die in the woods, lol. (Also, I really wanted Claude and Dedue to interact in canon but they didn’t so here’s an excuse now talk.)
> 
> Anyway, stay safe everyone! <3


	10. The Crescent Moon

“Let me stab him.”

“And blow our cover? Absolutely not.”

“You have such little trust in my skills?” Yasmin sounded frustrated. He could also hear the _shlink shlink_ of her sharpening a knife with a small whetstone, clear even over the sound of their horses’ hooves as they rode up toward the monastery.

“I know for a fact that your prince-stabbing record is abysmal.”

The sharpening sound stopped. “So it’s the prince!”

Claude had been… less than bubbly for the past week. He thought he hid it well, but Yasmin had noticed that he no longer re-read Dimitri’s letters; that he had in fact tucked them away in a box and shoved that under the dustiest stack of books in his office. Now she knew for certain the target of his failed… whatever he had been attempting… She knew he was one and the same with the prince on whose invitation they had gone to Faerghus.

He cringed at his past overly emotional behavior and vowed to do better. (As he always did, and only ever partially succeeded in keeping such promises to himself.)

“No stabbing. He’s not an enemy and the connection is still useful.”

“If he is neither friend nor foe, then forget him! Maybe you should focus on Leicester. _That _will be useful.”

Ha. If only it were that easy to forget such a key player. “I’m hovering on the tip of a conspiracy here that could affect the whole continent. Call it a hunch, but something tells me that the people targeting Faerghus are no friends of Leicester either, and definitely no friends of… anyone else. The Western Church and nearby lords of the Kingdom are in on it for sure, and we know what they’ve done to Duscur. Imagine that type controlling a third of Fódlan, or more. Is there any hope at all of improving relations with the outside world if that’s allowed to happen?”

Fhirdiad and Blaiddyd territory as a whole was firmly allied with the Central Church, but still they had heard some mumblings in taverns and on the streets, of “Maybe the Western Church was right” because “Did you know Archbishop Rhea allows a heathen Dagdan knight to guard her?” and “I heard she takes in filthy Almyran orphans too”. Historically, the Central Church was the root of the Seiros faith, and along with it the idea that only children of Fódlan could receive the Goddess’ salvation, but the Western Church seemed to have taken that point to an extreme.

Yasmin didn’t protest his decision anymore. Before they came to the gates and met up with other merchants, he signaled for her to dismount. She had been practicing hiding in forested areas and had gotten quite good at it. Perhaps they could find a secret entrance around the mountains that would lead to underground catacombs or a sewage system.

It wouldn’t be strange for him to take an extra horse into the stables since it was carrying goods. With a smile and a wave, and a presenting of his papers, they let him through.

Claude’s little rented stall was set up as usual, tins and bags of tea set out on display. He’d learned a bit from observing other merchants and listening to customers though, so this time he brought materials to put up a tent behind it. There was room inside for a small table and a few stools made from upturned crates scavenged from the produce stalls. The improvised furniture was made more presentable for possible noble clientele by draping them with beautiful Almyran brocade. Visitors could relax here and partake of the samples in relative privacy. It made the atmosphere closer to what he had in his shop, and hopefully it would loosen more tongues.

The Duscurian man, Dedue, came by while the market was still lazily waking up. While of an extremely large build, and standing straight as he walked, he still held himself apart from the crowd almost in the way Aamu did. He avoided crossing paths with certain knights, kept his eyes in front and nowhere else, and always seemed to be able to effortlessly glide into the least occupied spaces. Claude felt something in his chest leap at the sight of him, but he forced it down with a smile.

Dimitri hadn’t come along. It would be difficult to gain an audience with the prince now. Eventually he would have to try, if he wanted help in political matters. They seemed to share many similar opinions, after all. But that could wait.

“Welcome!” Claude greeted the prince’s retainer.

“Good morning,” Dedue said, and went silent. His eyes scanned the table, past the teas, but lingering somewhat on the small sachets of culinary spices.

He seemed to know what he was doing, so Claude let him be as picked out a few ingredients. When he was finished making his selection, Claude wordlessly took his coin and returned the change. Still he stared at the merchant with his brows drawn, then looked back toward the gate and the steadily increasing number of market-goers. There was something laying heavy on his mind that he didn’t want to say to an audience.

“Come inside, if you have private business,” Claude said, gesturing to the tent.

Dedue closed his eyes for a second. He opened them with fresh resolve and nodded. It was almost comical the way he ducked inside, barely fitting through, and the image of him perched delicately on the crate seating was like an adult on a child-sized stool. While Claude busied himself with lighting a small burner to boil the water for a pot of tea, Dedue organized his thoughts with brows furrowed.

“I was merely curious about your words last time we met…”

“About how I’ve visited the Kingdom?”

“And about my origins.”

Claude cocked his head to the side. He had only a vague idea of what Dedue wanted to discuss, and took a guess. “My guide was called Aamu, if that name is familiar to you?” He pulled out Aamu’s knife and showed it to him.

Dedue shook his head. “It is not.”

Claude shrugged and rifled through his wares to bring out a few ingredients that he hadn’t yet bagged for easy sale. They were whole sprigs of dried herbs and chunks of roasted roots that he chopped finely with the knife. It was good for this kind of work.

The leaves and roots went into the pot. His quiet guest didn’t seem inclined to become less quiet anytime soon, so he waited until he could pour the tea. With the teacup steaming in front of Dedue, Claude finally settled in with his hands under his chin and waited intently for a response.

Dedue sighed, stuck between a conversation he’d rather not have and a tea he’d rather not drink. But he was a well-mannered young man, so he took a sip even if it was with a slight grimace.

“Not your favorite?”

“No, but it’s a nostalgic taste. My… mother would make it when I was sick.”

“Big manly guy like you, I thought maybe you’d be the bitter type.”

Dedue was unamused. “If I wanted to drink dandelions, I’d have saved the pickings from weeding duty.”

“Ah, but this is a special variety! Extra large! Extra bitter!”

Dedue huffed, which for him was probably the equivalent of a laugh. “I see. I begin to understand why His Highness was so taken with you.”

Claude winced at that. “Yeah, _w__as_. That certainly didn’t go anywhere. And to be quite honest with you, I’m not seeing the connection, unless you’re saying weeds and impudence are the way to his heart.”

“You do not judge us, the people of Duscur,” Dedue said. “It is… rare.”

“Wow, such low standards! As outsiders we gotta stick together, you know.” He didn’t elaborate on that, not even when Dedue’s expression turned questioning.

Eventually, Dedue downed the rest of the cup in one gulp, signalling that he was almost ready to end the conversation. “As His Highness’ retainer, his well-being is my utmost concern. He has always carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. I’ve never seen him so carefree as when he was with you, so please, do not give up on him just yet.” He sucked in an awkward breath as he finished, clearly not used to speaking so much.

It was Claude’s turn to be silent, thoughts whirling madly in his mind. He was weak to such sincerity and couldn’t find it in himself to offer a glib response.

“Consider it,” Dedue said, and stood to leave.

Claude got up too, and went back to the pack where he’d pulled out the dandelion. From a side pocket he retrieved a packet that had been left there since the week before. “Here,” he said, handing it to Dedue.

The large man took it with a pleased nod, and parted as quietly as he arrived.

Lorenz and Hilda stopped by mid-morning to discuss “battle plans”. He was glad to see them, having been charmed by their eccentricities. Their loud and colorful personalities were exactly what he needed to recharge after that somber meeting with Dedue. He felt he had struck up something of an odd friendship with them, superficial though it may be. They were good people.

It turned out that the Alliance students were being sent to clear out a bandit stronghold, kill or capture, and Claude had been assigned to assist Hilda. She had just begun training as a wyvern rider – the other Goneril specialty besides heavy armor. (So clunky! So uncute!)

“Just give me covering fire while I swoop in to do the whackity whacks.” She waved it off flippantly.

“_Please_ take this seriously, Hilda,” Lorenz said. “It’ll be your first time engaging in live combat while mounted. Do you _want_ your brother to send another dozen embarrassing letters if you get injured?”

Hilda shuddered at the mention of Holst’s overprotective tendencies, but still she disagreed. “I grew up by the Throat and I’ve been flying all my life. You can’t really escape it there. Right, Claude?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, absolutely. Natural wyvern breeding grounds there, and rough terrain for all but fliers. We’re all born in the saddle.”

Hilda was pleased by that answer, but Lorenz didn’t seem to believe it could be true for her. Nevertheless, he promised not to nag – Hilda’s words – so long as she trained with Claude prior to the mission.

“I hate to ask this of you,” Lorenz said to Claude, “but the burden on you is greater without a full battalion. Please assist Lady Hilda however you can, and I’ll see about getting you a pass for the knight’s barracks for overnight stays.”

Claude raised an eyebrow in surprise. That was certainly a better way of getting into the monastery than snooping around for sewage tunnels.

“Yeah, hear that? You’re as good as my manservant now. Chop chop, fetch the tea,” Hilda teased.

Just for that, he gave her a cup of his bitterest brew.

* * *

Dimitri was a common fixture in the library late at night. Quite a few of the academy’s higher performing students were frequent visitors at these hours too, and though they tended to be studying magic, history and battle tactics were also often researched. He pretended to be studying these, and made sure to always have a general history text at his table while he pored through obscure financial records looking for any hint of unaccounted funds.

Contrary to what some might think, he wasn’t being stupid or mindless in his pursuit of justice. He knew his enemy was involved with the Western Church; he knew the previous western rebellion and Lonato’s rebellion were connected through this line. The instigator of these events was hiding somewhere in western Faerghus, perhaps with connections to nearby Adrestian lords. It was even possible that they had bribed or coerced some of the lords of Leicester.

That didn’t narrow things down a lot. Or at all. He still had no idea who was a leader and who was just happy to be used as long as they stood to gain more power from cooperation. If he were the sly type who knew how to handle a spy network, perhaps he would have stayed quiet and obedient until the information was brought to him. But Faerghus traditions didn’t value such information gathering tactics – considered them underhanded, in fact, and so Dimitri was never taught these ways, and there was no one he trusted to teach him.

He was taught to be honest and outspoken, so when he saw injustice, he called it out. Once was not enough. Twice was not enough. He kept calling it out and made a target of himself because it was the only way he knew he could get the enemies to come for him. Eventually they would slip up and send one of their inner circle to confront him face to face. He just had to hold out long enough and hope he could recognize them when the time came.

_Wait, please_, he begged of both the living and the dead._ I will free you_._ I just need time._

A droplet of dark liquid spattered on the document before him. Dimitri stared at it, willing his eyes to focus after hours of straining them under the dim yellow light of the library’s oil lamps.

Drip.

Splatter.

Drip.

Blood rolled down the sheet in thick rivulets, soaking in and obscuring parts of the text. Dimitri glanced up to see Glenn’s caved-in face hovering over the numbers. Ah. They were the same age now, how strange. Dimitri had grown taller than Glenn. He could no longer be shielded in Glenn’s arms as he had been in Duscur, pressed under a cloak and laid upon while the older boy was beaten and stabbed to death above him.

“That’s two violent rebellions you’ve helped put down now,” Glenn said. “They’re trying to sow discord among our people, trying to instigate a civil war. Trying to stage a coup as was done in the Empire.”

“I know.”

Glenn reached out a bloody hand to ruffle Dimitri’s hair, getting it slick and tacky, copper scent clinging where it landed. “Then you know they’re using you to do it. Silly Mitya, playing right into their hands. Your opposition is what fuels them. You’re splitting the Kingdom in half.”

“I… I’m not… It’s the only way! The Kingdom is rotting from within. I must cut out the taint.”

“Or maybe you should just give up and die? Leave the throne to the grown-ups, little Mitya.”

The specter teased him the same way Glenn used to, holding his age and experience over Dimitri, treating him like a baby. When Glenn was still alive, Dimitri used to get so mad at him for that. Now the words just made him ache.

“You should get some sleep, hmm?” it said and faded away.

Dimitri shut his eyes so tightly he could see bursts of color fly across his closed eyelids. When he opened them again, the bloodstains were gone.

He heard a shuffling, though, coming from the alcove where the magic books were kept, and where the magic-focused students did most of their studying. The girl who tiptoed in had long white hair, and Dimitri’s first thought was _El_.

It wasn’t, of course. The library wasn’t one of her usual haunts, and there was no way Edelgard would creep about like a mouse. The girl – Lysithea von Ordelia, he now recognized – had a candle clutched tightly in her shaking hands.

“Oh goodness, it’s just you,” she said upon seeing Dimitri. Lysithea calmed somewhat, but was still frightened when she asked, “W-who were you talking to?”

“No one, really. Just a ghost.”

“G-g-ghost?!” Her eyes darted around the darkened corners.

Dimitri held up his hands to reassure her. “Ah, I didn’t mean to startle you. I meant to say it’s late and I might have imagined a companion who would listen to my jumbled thoughts.”

“Oh, well, of course ghosts aren’t real. _I_ certainly don’t believe in them! And you should really get some rest if you’re starting to hallucinate things, Your Highness.”

“Yes, the time really has run away from us, hasn’t it?”

Lysithea, youngest student at the academy, shifted right into scolding him without reservation. “Moreso than that,” she said, shaking her head, “It’s quite an advanced state of sleep deprivation you’re exhibiting! As a matter of fact, I don’t think I could in good conscience leave you to navigate back to the dorms in such a state! So it’s settled. We’ll leave together straight away.”

The way she tried to act tough reminded Dimitri too much of himself and his childhood friends, all forced to grow up too quickly. It was somewhat expected of them, being nobles of the northern frontier, who learned to wield swords before they could read. Alliance nobles, aside from those of the far east, were supposed to be pampered. Something must have happened to her to make her so desperate to be acknowledged by the adults around her in the way that Dimitri was desperate for the truths he spoke about the Tragedy to be taken seriously. But it wasn’t his place to pry.

He indulged her by playing along, allowing her to “escort” him to his room, though as they came to the dorms they realized that her room was closer. Lysithea offered to walk him up and come back down by herself, but she was trembling as she said it.

“It’s fine, really,” Dimitri said. “I can make it upstairs by myself.”

“O-oh, okay… And I suppose, if you ever need anyone to listen to your jumbled thoughts late at night, you can always come find me.” She quickly sucked in a breath. “Provided you don’t distract me from my studies, that is! I just think it might be nice to have a study partner, we could keep each other awake, and snack breaks would be much more efficient with two people, and… and…”

“I would like that very much. Thank you. And good night.”

“Good night,” she whispered in return.

Dimitri sighed, rubbing his eyes as he went up the stairs. Once inside, armor stripped off, he saw there was a wooden tray left on his desk bearing a cup of tea. Dedue must have brought it in, as he did sometimes when Dimitri stayed out too late. His concern meant a lot, but also brought with it a sense of guilt. To be served by Dedue in such a way only highlighted the differences in their social status, of which Dedue was already too conscious.

The tea had gone cold, but Dimitri drank it anyway. It had a nice floral scent – not chamomile, but sweet and calming all the same. Underneath that he picked up hints of something minty and more deeply herbal, though not unpleasant. He could grow to like this blend a lot.

It was only when he returned the empty cup to the tray that he saw the packet of loose leaf tea behind it. On it was writing in a very familiar hand.

> _ **Nights of Faerghus** _
> 
> _Linden, birch, wild thyme. _
> 
> _A blend for sleep, colds, and mild pain relief._
> 
> _Get some rest after a hard day of training!_

Claude. Kind and witty and too good for him. He was too tired to figure out what Dedue meant by bringing this. He fell asleep to flashes of remembered images, of blood and ashes and clever hands brewing tea. Guilt and longing accompanied him through all his dreams, his constant companions.

* * *

The bandits were active in Gloucester County, so it made sense for the Golden Deer to be assigned to the task of routing them. Most of them were familiar with the area, and even if they weren’t, it was mostly open plains and low hills. There were a lot of farms, and plenty of forests as well, though these were not like the dark and foreboding woods of Faerghus. They were bright and temperate, good for hunting.

The Church had access to permanent warp circles scattered across the land, but they required too much power to activate for students on such a low-ranked mission. Not enough monks and bishops could be spared to warp them, and not enough time could be spared to alert the clergymen stationed at the circles located at churches outside of Garreg Mach. There were also too many people for it to be efficient, with there being three to five soldiers to every officer-in-training, and horses and wyverns to boot. No, they had to travel the old-fashioned way.

“My village is nearby,” Leonie said when they settled into camp the first night. “There used to always be bandits around these parts, trying to take advantage of all the hardworking farmers and hunters. Captain Jeralt and his mercenaries got rid of them all once, years before, but I guess a new band has sprung up again. It’s strange though, since all the villages here have increased security following what Captain Jeralt taught us.”

Leonie was one of the more sensible members of the class, and no one had taken fault with anything she said throughout the day, until just then. At the mention of ‘Captain Jeralt’, a couple of her classmates rolled their eyes.

The students occupied one side of the campfire, and the soldiers the other. Claude was somewhere in between them, with Professor Hanneman and his apprentice of sorts, Linhardt von Hevring. Linhardt was an Adrestian noble, and a member of another class. He was considering a transfer even though Hanneman was happy to mentor him separately. Linhardt was lazy though. _Much_ lazier than even Hilda, unless it was something that deeply interested him, like crest research. He said having to do regular coursework for Professor Manuela on top of the crest research was too much, so wouldn’t it be better if he only had to do assignments from _one_ professor?

“Yes, well, you’ll still have to study to pass all your exams,” Professor Hanneman said, after which the two of them carried on discussing crest inheritance and the magic theory behind it all.

“Then again,” Linhardt said, yawning, “transferring is seen as a big deal, and there will be so much shouting and so much paperwork. I might end up with even less time for naps.”

Most of the information was too advanced for Claude to follow, but he ended up learning a lot about the abilities of those he would be fighting beside. Claude goaded the two of them on with questions that they were only too happy to answer in long, winding paragraphs, spoken as if reciting a textbook. The old professor even started quizzing his students while on the march, much to Claude’s amusement, and they glared at him when forced to admit to their teacher that they hadn’t been paying attention.

So when Claude said to Leonie, “Captain Jeralt? The name sounds familiar,” and set her off gushing about how wonderful he was, the others really shot him looks of suffering.

“You’re horrible,” Hilda muttered. “I said one mean thing to you, and you tricked me into drinking weed water, then you made me _sweat _during practice, and now crest lectures _and_ Captain Jeralt? I can’t believe you.”

“Why, _milady_, I would’ve done all those things regardless.”

“That’s even worse!”

Claude shrugged. “I’m just trying to get to know you all better.”

None of them believed him, but that was fine. He learned about Jeralt’s mercenaries, their ties to Professor Byleth, and most importantly, that Leonie’s instincts were right in calling it strange that a group of bandits as large as the Church’s scouts reported could have built such a base in this area. Maybe he was being paranoid, but there was a chance they were planted here, hired to move in for some nefarious reason. It could be a trap. But what were they after?

After dinner by the campfire, a watch schedule was decided, and tents and sleeping rolls set up. Claude was stationed next to Hilda and their wyverns to make things easier if she had to command him in battle without much notice. Someday Hilda might be as fierce a commander as her brother, but she wasn’t like that now. She might not take him seriously if he, only a lowly soldier for the time being, were to raise concerns without any proof.

The sun had fully set, but the moon and stars were bright enough to see by in this rural place. Leonie sat tending the dying embers of the fire, smothered in order to avoid calling attention to their position. It was summer, and nights were warm enough without it. Claude left his position by Hilda’s tent to see if he might stoke Leonie’s suspicions further. Lorenz and Hanneman would listen to her if she brought it up more seriously.

But before he could do more than wave to her in greeting, they heard the swish and thunk of multiple arrows being fired toward the camp, and then the panicked whinny of a horse. Leonie and Claude both whipped their heads in the direction of the commotion.

“Sound the alert, we’re under attack!” She snatched up her bow and ran to where soldiers had also begun shouting. “Professor! Lorenz!”

Claude ran back to the wyverns to see Hilda exiting her tent, strapping a large battleaxe to her back. She’d picked up his bow as well, and tossed it to him.

“We’re flying. We’ll spot them easier from above.”

It wasn’t a bad idea, per se, but the enemy had multiple archers. If Claude were in command, his strategy would be more cautious at first. He’d be inclined to use the wyverns to herd the bandits toward a waiting force once their location was discovered.

But Hilda was confident in their flying, and she planned her attack from the skies in the same way she would if she were an armored knight – pushing through the front lines with sheer force. They quickly mounted and flew into battle, Claude’s arrows distracting the enemy archers and clearing the way for HIlda.

From above, the chaos was clear to see. The bandits had approached the camp from the north and stormed right in, cleaving it in half. Professor Hanneman had grouped most of the students around him on one side, and they were holding their own. However, there were stragglers on the other side who hadn’t grouped up in time, and they were struggling to find a way to meet up.

Lorenz was there, trying his best to shout the others into some semblance of order. He seemed to be the only commanding officer on that side, and the few soldiers around him were not his assigned battalion. Hilda had spotted him too, and she signaled for Claude to follow as she went to support her House leader.

“Kill the Gloucester boy!” a bandit shouted.

Lorenz ducked and rolled under an axe swing and brought up his lance to parry the next hit. But then another man came at him from the side, and yet another, and he was forced to retreat further away. They were concentrating their attacks on separating Lorenz from the others.

An archer appeared, shooting two arrows in quick succession at the wyvern riders. Claude pulled the reins on Precious and she veered sharply, tipping almost upside down to avoid the shot. Hilda’s wyvern, built for strength and defense more than agility, took the hit aimed at her and just grew angrier. They roared in tandem as they dove for the attacker and Hilda cut him down with a single mighty blow. Her wyvern’s claws dug furrows into the ground as it landed, and Hilda leapt off the saddle, axe overhead, to slam another bandit into the ground with a skull-splitting crack and a golden flash of the Crest of Goneril.

“Ooh, feisty, I like that.” It was the same bandit who had given the order before, most likely their leader. He sized up Hilda and said to his men, “Boss wants Pinky alive.”

“You heard him, he wants me alive,” Hilda said. “Go help Lorenz.”

Claude flew past the borders of their camp and into the nearby wood where he’d seen Lorenz run for cover. He dismounted here and made his way deeper in, ducking behind the trees to hopefully sneak up on his opponents.

A burst of flame from a fire spell ignited some of the underbrush, and he followed it to find Lorenz wavering but still alive. There were cuts and gashes all over him. He’d lost his lance.

There was the corpse of one bandit engulfed by flames, and Lorenz blasted a second with another spell, setting even more of the forest aflame. But there were _three_ who chased after him…

In that moment, a calm washed over Claude. He knew exactly what to do, each step seen in slow motion. Claude drew his bow sideways and dashed in front of Lorenz. The axe swung down and cleaved into the meat of his shoulder just as he loosed the arrow into the bandit’s throat at point blank.

Blood spurted from both wounds. The man fell with a choked off breath, but an eerie glow connected his fatal wound to his killer. Above Claude, the ethereal form of the Crest of Riegan dissipated as the bandit’s life force flowed into the gash on his shoulder and knit the flesh up as neatly as a heal spell.

Still breathing heavily, Claude turned to check on Lorenz, only to see him staring back with pursed lips and steely eyes.

“Oh boy. You… weren’t supposed to find out that way.”

At least no one else was around, right? He had already marked Lorenz and Hilda as fairly trustworthy among the Alliance heirs, and eventually he would have told them this much. Things were just moving ahead of plan.

As soon as he thought that, the bushes nearby rustled, and Linhardt came tumbling out.

“Ah, the Crest of Riegan! Inherent faith magic, much like Nosferatu, in fact perhaps the historical inspiration for the spell, very interesting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: Weeds and Impudence  
You can’t tell me that’s not Dimitri’s type. Someone who’s not too formal with him and also enables him in his consumption of weeds? Come on. That’s love.
> 
> FE Expo got cancelled… sigh. I had to enter a lottery for those tickets in December, man. I had to navigate that lottery process with my shitty shitty Japanese, man. Guess I’ll channel all my fandom feels into this fic lol ;p
> 
> I keep asking myself when this fic grew a plot. Why is there a plot? Why is this plot all complicated and stuff? The answer is probably “because canon”. Sigh again.


	11. Heirs

“You’re legitimate,” Lorenz said, barely daring to whisper it, eyes wide in both wonder and fear as he stared at where the golden crescent moon had shone. Then, “You’re legitimate,” he said louder and angrier. “What are you doing here, playing merchant, when you are the true heir!”

Claude frantically tried to shush him. “Shh! Not so loud! It’s secret, we’ll talk later.” He whirled around to address Linhardt. “And _you_, you absolutely cannot tell anyone about this, not even Professor Hanneman. No, _especially_ not Hanneman.”

Linhardt’s face screwed up in displeasure, the most emotion he’d shown since they set off on this mission. “The Crest of Riegan is terrifyingly close to being lost from the world, and its abilities are among the most powerful and unique. Do you know how much good could be done, how many illnesses could be cured and lives saved, if we could harness that power for all mankind? It _must _be properly studied before it is lost!”

“And do _you_ know how much danger I would be in if word got out about this? I’m no good to you dead, and I will run and hide if you say anything, don’t think I won’t. Good luck convincing _Duke Riegan_ to let you poke him before he passes! So if you want even a chance in hell to study this Crest you’d better shut it.”

Linhardt, finger raised and about to protest, thought for a moment before shutting his mouth with an audible clack.

“We’re talking about this as soon as we get back to the monastery,” Lorenz said. Content that Linhardt wasn’t about to spill state secrets then and there, he stomped past the other two, leaving them to scurry after him back toward camp, Linhardt rushing to catch up and heal his wounds, and Claude detouring to pick up his wyvern.

The battle was ended by the time they returned, though the camp was not at ease.

“Oh, thank the goddess you’re all right!” Ignatz said. He and Raphael were watching the woods for their return.

“Yeah,” Raphael said, “we were gonna go after you guys soon!” He treated each of them to a bone-crushing hug.

As they were led back, they saw that everyone was on edge. Even though bodies of the slain bandits had been dragged to the side, there was still blood on the dirt and grass. No one would be sleeping here. They would have to move camp.

Soldiers were still being treated for their wounds as well, and some of the bandits had been captured and bound. Among them was the leader. Hilda and Hanneman were interrogating him while Marianne healed his wounds enough to keep him conscious.

“What happened here?” Lorenz asked.

Hilda grinned. The battle high had yet to fade from her; she’d yet to put her delicate maiden persona back into place. “He ate my axe, that’s what. Now tell us who sent you unless you want to eat it again!”

The bandit leader spat out a mouthful of blood at her feet. “Just kill me then. Nothing you do can be worse than what’ll come my way if I tattle. You lot o’ fancy lordlings ain’t nearly creative enough if you think _beatings_ and _death_ are the worst fates that can befall a man.”

He fell silent after that, closed his eyes and refused to respond even as he knelt before them. Eventually Hanneman called for soldiers to lock him up with the others in a prisoners wagon that was part of their convoy.

The mission was completed early, though they would still send scouts to check the area come morning. And tonight they still had to set up a new camp. As they packed up, the students speculated about the recent events.

Lysithea spoke up first. “You guys heard it too, right? They said to kill Lorenz.”

“I didn’t hear it, but I saw them going after him in particular,” Raphael said.

“Right. But then they said I was to be captured alive,” Hilda added.

“Hmm. How vexing.” Lysithea crossed her arms, frowning. “Why would they want Lorenz dead but Hilda alive?”

“One more thing,” Leonie said. “They were wearing wolverine pelts, crudely fashioned, almost definitely hunted themselves. You can only get so much of that in the higher altitudes of the Oghma mountains. I bet that’s where they came from.”

Lorenz glanced to Claude and Linhardt before addressing his housemates again. “Lysithea, Marianne… if my suspicions are correct, you two should be on guard as well. Let’s not speak any more of this until we’re in the safety of the monastery.”

Claude followed silently behind Lorenz as he approached Hanneman.

“Professor, I would like to speak to you in regards to the prisoners.”

“Yes, what about them?”

“This is…” Lorenz sucked in a deep breath. “This has become an Alliance affair. The scions of two noble houses have been targeted. Since they were clearly after me, they should be sent to my father for questioning.”

Hanneman considered the proposition for a moment. “It is also an affair of the Church,” he said slowly. “All students of the Officers Academy are considered wards of the Church for the duration of their enrollment.”

“Yes, but--”

The old professor held up a hand. “Your father should be informed straight away, I understand your worries on that front. However, we can’t afford to split our forces at this time. The Knights of Seiros will take charge of the prisoners, and then if your father is unsatisfied with the results of their questioning he may send his own men or arrange for their transport. For now, our priority should be getting you back to the monastery, young man!”

It was true they hadn’t brought enough soldiers to comfortably split into two groups and still have enough to both guard the prisoners and protect the noble students. Lorenz acquiesced, and they spent the next few hours relocating. It was the middle of the night before anyone was able to rest, yet they still woke at dawn and traveled the whole day, until it was evening again when they finally reached Garreg Mach.

The way back was mostly silent. Hanneman assumed they were merely tired and shaken from battle, and separated easily enough from them once they reached the monastery. Bleary-eyed, the students all trudged toward the Golden Deer classroom.

“This is too many people,” Claude whispered to Lorenz on the way. “You and Hilda, fine. Linhardt because he saw and we need to deal with that. The rest? They’re not involved.”

Lorenz sniffed in disdain. “The plot is against our nation’s _nobility_. All scions of the Five Great Lords are _absolutely_ involved.”

He wasn’t stealthy at all, and had been overheard. Claude smacked his face into his palms.

“Ooh, are we making our own Roundtable?” Hilda asked.

Lysithea scoffed. “Are we going to hunt down the secret Riegan heir living in the mountains to complete our numbers? Let’s just get this over with.”

They arrived at the classroom and began filing in. Lorenz struggled to bar the commoners from entering.

“Oh hell no,” Leonie said. “You’re not pulling this nobles versus commoners thing. Someone’s after my friends, I want in.”

“Yeah!” Raphael bellowed. “We gotta know how we can protect you!”

Ignatz nodded. “I… I want to try my best too.”

They pushed their way inside, and soon Claude was surrounded by a sea of rainbow haired kids. _All_ the misfits were in. Great. They all looked at him, too. The brighter ones had of course figured out he was an informant, since a random soldier wouldn’t be in the ‘secret’ meeting otherwise.

“Goddess, none of you have a stealthy bone in your body. Can we at least do a privacy spell or something? At least?”

“O-oh, I can, I can do that, I think…” Marianne, Lord Edmund’s very gloomy adopted daughter, brightened up just the tiniest bit at the prospect of being useful. She approached each of the four walls and mumbled an incantation for each one, a small glowing sigil appearing on the places she touched.

“Huh. Interesting,” Claude remarked to himself. He rapped on the closest wall to check, but it made no sound.

The students pulled up chairs around one of the long tables. They crowded together as Lorenz began the meeting with his hypothesis.

“The bandits must have been hired by someone seeking to destroy the power structure of the Alliance, probably someone from outside our borders, if they came from the Oghma mountains. Hilda isn’t currently in line to lead the Roundtable, but her brother is. Holst is notoriously strong, however, so they needed Hilda for leverage.”

Lysithea nodded. “And you’re second in line, it makes sense. The line of succession hasn’t been decided beyond that, but there aren’t many direct heirs among the Five Lords, so Marianne or I could conceivably be next, if you were removed…”

“I doubt that very much,” Marianne said. Her voice was a breathy whisper infused with self-deprecation. Hilda, sitting next to her, laid a comforting hand on her arm.

Lysithea continued on. “Well, regardless of our personal doubts or wishes – I certainly wouldn’t want the position either – what makes you think it’s an outside thing, that it isn’t a plot by House Ordelia or House Edmund to seize power? The Oghma region is conveniently in the center of everything. It’s too easy to make your tracks disappear here, so maybe it’s an inside job and they only want to make you _think_ it’s one of the other nations to stir up political strife.”

“You… don’t want me to trust you?” Lorenz frowned. He really was too _noble_ for life among the nobility, Claude thought. It was kind of amazing, actually, considering the type of man his father was. Or perhaps it was just a testament to how the desire for power could corrupt even the best of men and turn them into wasps like Lord Gloucester, who would be Claude’s first suspect in any scheme that didn’t call for the head of his only heir.

“Trust is stupid in politics,” she countered. “I’m not saying my family had anything to do with it, and I’m almost certain they didn’t, but how can _you _be so sure it isn’t us or one of the lesser houses?”

“Well, frankly, the lesser houses don’t have the means, and neither of your families has a reason! House Ordelia has declined so much that there’s only _you_ left, Lysithea, and your father wouldn’t push that on you when you’re so outspoken against it. And House Edmund owes its position on the Roundtable entirely to House Daphnel, which is allied strongly with House Riegan. They would _never_ betray us, they would gain nothing but could lose everything.”

“So what if it’s House Riegan? You know Duke Riegan has at least two bastard grandchildren running around now. What if he wants them to take power even without having inherited a Crest?”

Claude spoke up then. “It’s not House Riegan.”

Everyone turned to look at him once more. He hadn’t felt so scrutinized since their fathers were the ones staring him down almost a year ago. Here he was again, an outsider making absurd proclamations. They hadn’t believed him then, when he tried his best to be sincere. Why would their children believe him now?

He shrugged and grinned. “So… about that secret Riegan heir who was living in the mountains, rumored to be running around as a merchant now… Hi. I’m the Duke’s grandson, Derdriu’s most beloved bastard, at your service.”

Hilda threw up her arms. “The Roundtable is complete!”

Leonie blinked and said, “Okay, unexpected twist, but whatever.”

Ignatz rubbed his eyes under the glasses, then squinted at him, perhaps trying to see the faint resemblance.

“Whoa,” Raphael said. “That’s why your guys were dressed in Riegan colors when they came to my grandparents’ place!”

Claude really had to chuckle then. “You only put that together just now? The bank note came from the Riegan vault too.”

“How was I supposed to know Derdriu guys didn’t just stamp everything with the Riegan Crest? Puzzles aren’t my strong point. My _muscles_ are my strong point. As long as you treat your employees good, _we’re_ good.”

One person was still unconvinced. Lysithea was seething at this point. “So you’re the one. So what, we’re just supposed to trust you? Lorenz, it’s one thing to want to believe in us, your classmates, but this guy? We know nothing about him!”

Lorenz shook his head. “He saved me. In the battle. He could have pretended to be too scared or too slow, but he took the blow for me. If House Riegan were behind the attack, there have been too many opportunities for him to kill us.”

There was no time to slowly build trust with someone as shrewd as Lysithea. He had to play to her pragmatic side by offering a selfish reason. “I’m pretty good with poisons,” Claude said. “Think of all the times you drank tea that came from my shop. Nah, see, I’m working on your behalf, and this way your fathers will owe me. Once my grandfather passes, they can’t just conveniently repossess the Riegan family assets from the guy who saved their heirs, can they? _You_ wouldn’t let your fathers do that to me, right?”

“I… _have_ been told, by my father, that your tea shop is somewhat of a safe house…” she said, still frowning.

“Exactly. They know I’m here.”

The meeting was going far better than Claude had hoped so far, which just meant it had to go downhill from there. Lorenz tensed up, and Claude knew he was going to reveal what he’d seen.

“There’s one more thing. He has the Crest.” Lorenz stared down at his clenched fists on the table. His voice nearly choked as he said, “The Crest of Riegan. He’s the true heir.”

Marianne gasped, and Lysithea fell deep in contemplation. The common-born students could sense the tension, but didn’t fully understand it.

“The… what?!” Hilda shot him a look that could kill a man. Her harmless maiden facade broke again.

Claude, on damage control, kept up his friendly grin. “Oh, don’t act so shocked! Hilda, _you’ve_ known I was an agent of House Riegan since the beginning. It was always a possibility, wasn’t it?”

Hilda continued to glare at him. “That’s _different_.”

“How is it any different?”

“Because it means you’re not a bastard!”

“Having the Crest doesn’t make me suddenly not a bastard, inheritance doesn’t work that way.”

“It does,” Lorenz said. “For the descendants of the Ten Elites who live by the old laws it does, and those laws have never been repealed.”

“The old laws? What, the ones from when Leicester was just an unruly province of the Kingdom? They’re just guidelines that can be overruled by a vote. And it has been, four to one. We’re citizens of a republic, not some ancient outdated monarchy. Crests are no longer necessary to rule, and the Alliance bows to no king,” Claude said with pride. He paused to look each of the nobles in the eye after such a patriotic statement, following the tactic he’d learned from Lord Gloucester. When that had sunken in, he continued. “It’s true that when my grandfather found out I’d inherited the Crest, he thought perhaps the Alliance could avoid a succession crisis if I were accepted as his heir. Your father voted against me,” he said to Lorenz. Then he swept his hand across the other noble scions sitting before him. “All your fathers did. Write to them; ask them about me. They’ll tell you exactly what I just said.”

“I’m not an expert on Crest politics,” Ignatz said, “but… you’re keeping yours secret so that people don’t rally around you, right? Duke Riegan’s been good to the people; his rule has kept the Alliance prosperous. A lot of them would get mad if they thought the other lords were trying to steal the land from his rightful heir.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I’m fine with the Roundtable’s ruling, but to preserve the peace, my Crest is going to have to remain secret until the line of succession stabilizes. I won’t be used as a figurehead for someone else’s rebellion. And _all_ of this, what we’ve spoken of tonight, is a secret until we find out who’s behind the attack.”

Not much was said after that. Lysithea still wanted to conduct her own investigations to see if it was an internal affair. It never hurt to be too thorough. They all promised to look out for each other, which was sweet, though Claude would have preferred not to give them the knowledge in the first place. Seeing the care that Lorenz and Hilda received from their classmates though, he could believe they would do their best.

They trundled off, yawning, but Claude stayed behind with Lorenz and Linhardt, who hadn’t said anything at all for the entire meeting. His presence seemed to have been accepted by the other Golden Deer because Lorenz accepted it, and because he’d been hanging around their professor for long enough, but he wasn’t officially one of them. Not just yet.

“The spell will last, um, a little while longer,” Marianne informed them. She was in the back of the departing group, like usual for her. Hilda lingered also, unsure of whether she wanted to stay, but in the end she accompanied Marianne back to the dorms.

When it was just the three of them, Linhardt sighed and finally spoke. “Is this the part where you threaten me into silence?”

Claude didn’t really know Linhardt at all. They met on the day of the mission, so two full days now. They’d only been acquainted for such a short time, and in that time he learned that Linhardt was smart, lazy, and loved Crest research. Not much else beyond that. He looked to Lorenz to take the lead, but Lorenz looked back, and the two of them pushed the responsibility back and forth until Lorenz gave in.

“Threats are so uncouth. Not befitting our noble stations at all. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

It figured. Lorenz was too soft for threats, even softer than Claude. He was going to rely on Linhardt’s sense of honor not to blab, which wasn’t good for anything. Linhardt may have made new friends with the Golden Deer, but that didn’t erase his lifetime of history with those in the Empire.

Claude thought quickly. Perhaps Linhardt would be just as soft as Lorenz, and talk of morality could get through to him. He did seem to be a dedicated healer, and his words back in the forest about wanting to do good in the world were oddly impassioned. It was worth a shot.

“Look,” Claude said. “Whoever is doing this is _wrong_. Plotting the assassination of people who haven’t done anything is _wrong_, regardless of who their parents are, or what wrongs they might do in the future. Lorenz and Hilda haven’t done those things yet, so it’s wrong to target them, don’t you agree?”

“Of course. I’m not some sort of monster…”

“And do you agree not to help the perpetrators on these moral grounds? That includes giving them any information about us and what we know.”

“It… sounds like you’re saying I might already know who’s behind this…”

“I don’t know if you do. But it’s politically motivated, and there’s a chance it’s connected to other plots. People are trying to kill Prince Dimitri too, I’m sure you’ve heard.”

“Edelgard as well,” Lorenz added. “They targeted her too, at the beginning of the school year.”

“Really?” Claude’s eyebrows rose. It was the first he was hearing of this.

“A brigand named Kostas and his band of thieves attacked all three of us on a training trip. They were also from the Oghma mountains. We all would have perished if Jeralt’s mercenaries hadn’t seen the battle.”

Linhardt had begun shaking a while back. Ever since the battle, he’d been holding himself together through sheer force of will, but now with the sleep deprivation and the pressure being applied on him, he started to crack.

Claude and Lorenz heard him sniffle unexpectedly.

“I hate fighting,” he said, tears rising to his eyes. “The… blood, the bodies. Why do we have to fight until we die? I just want to study and heal…”

They gave him a moment to compose himself, and in that moment as Linhardt choked on his breaths, he wasn’t a _liability_ or _potential Adrestian spy_. He was barely an adult, as they all were, a young man who hadn’t quite found his place in the world, who had been raised destined to fill a terrible mold and was fighting against that as best he could.

He was sheltered and hadn’t seen violence close up until his enrollment in the academy. Perhaps this mission was the first in which he had seen so many bodies, or maybe the first in which he had to take a life.

Linhardt exhaled sharply as he calmed down. “Ugh. All right. I will promise… on my oath as a healer… that even if my family is involved, I won’t help anyone harm or plan to harm anyone else outside of immediate self-defense. How’s that?”

Lorenz smiled, though it was wobbly. He’d lived through two assassination attempts in the span of a few months, and was understandably shaken. Still, when Linhardt gave his promise, Lorenz didn’t even hesitate before clasping his arms and gushing over how _noble_ it was that they should work together to preserve order for the people.

Just a simple promise was clearly enough for Lorenz. Foolishly so, Claude’s paranoid mind said. But Claude was not a prince here. He was not a leader of any kind. It would have to be enough for him, too.

* * *

Dimitri left the Knight’s Hall quite late into the evening, yet another lance destroyed. The Goddess’ Rite of Rebirth would be taking place soon, and they had been running security drills and formations all month. That note they had uncovered from Lonato had everyone on edge in the Blue Lions, knowing that they were to intercept a raid on the monastery.

As usual, he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he’d pushed himself to exhaustion. He tried the library after dinner, but it was lonely there. Recently he’d been spoiled with company, first being joined by Lysithea, then Annette as well. The two girls had each proclaimed the other to be their eternal rival, and when Annette saw Dimitri and Lysithea sharing tea and cake as they studied, she’d wanted in too and brought cookies as a bribe. They were careful not to be loud, but were still lively in the way they competed in absurd endeavors such as seeing who could read fastest or who could learn an obscure spell first.

It was nice having such company, and it kept the ghosts at bay so well that Dimitri began to spend less time in the library if the girls weren’t there. Lysithea was off on a mission, and Annette was on strict orders to get more rest from pushing herself too hard this morning.

Alone, the ghosts came. His stepmother appeared first, gazing at him from afar. He’d never seen her body, so usually she appeared whole. She said nothing and seemed to look through him as she often had in life when she was feeling melancholy, perhaps worried for her family back in the Empire. She was the only mother figure he had ever known, and she was always gentle with him. He had always felt loved by her, and loved her so much in return that even though they weren’t blood related, he felt he had inherited more of her personality and mannerisms than he had of his father. Sometimes, though, she had seemed to be seeing someone else when she looked at him, and her ghost was always this way. It never saw him properly.

Dimitri continued looking over the records until he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, the ghost he feared the most. King Lambert’s head was hanging by his chest, attached to his neck by a thin strip of flesh. Dimitri’s breathing quickened and he slammed shut the book he was holding, shoving it back onto the shelf. He took long strides out of the library, down the halls and the stairs while his father flew at his side.

The ghost shoved its face closer to Dimitri, bleeding all over his back and side and its mouth opened unnaturally wide and it _screeched_\--

**AVENGE US**

The warbling, blood-choked voice followed him as he sprinted into the small training area of the Knight’s Hall, far closer than the training grounds. It died only as he sank the tip of a lance into a straw training dummy.

He drilled until the lance broke, and only then did he feel clear-headed enough to attempt going to bed. When he stepped out of the Knight’s Hall, however, he froze at the voices and footsteps of two men headed in this direction.

“You don’t have to escort me all the way to the barracks. I can find my way.”

“I _insist_. It’s my duty as a noble to care for the common folk. And also, I’m not sure I trust you not to go sneaking wherever your curiosity pleases, including facilities you haven’t been given leave to use.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, Lorenz. Wouldn’t want my commoner cooties floating around in your fancy bath house, right?”

Lorenz huffed. “That is _not at all_ what I said!” They came upon Dimitri then, and Lorenz sketched a quick bow. “Ah, good evening, Dimitri.”

Claude’s smile grew brittle as he mumbled the same.

Dimitri remembered hearing that the Golden Deer would return from their mission soon. He supposed they had come in just recently, as the two of them looked worn out, and Claude’s bow and quiver were still slung over his shoulder. The mystery of why Claude of all people had gone into battle with the Deer stalled his thought processes for long enough to make things awkward. Both of them were too tired to pretend this night. He kept looking at Claude while Claude kept looking away.

“Good evening. Pardon me, gentlemen,” he finally got out. He ducked past where they had stopped and slid around a corner to settle his nerves. Dimitri heard their voices again – they seemed to have slowed their pace – and thought he should leave before he ended up eavesdropping, but his legs felt glued in place.

“Have you seriously not made a move on him yet?” Lorenz asked. “The tension is just _painful_ now, looking at you two.”

Claude’s voice came quietly and more defeated than Dimitri had ever heard. It almost didn’t sound like him, not the happy, confident Claude who was strong enough to smile even as he was being dumped.

“It wouldn’t work out between us. Our lives… we’re just… too different. Better to cut it off now…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all are too good to me~ Seriously, this is the most popular fic I’ve ever written, and since we’re fast approaching 50k words and maybe only half way through, it’ll be the longest fic I’ve ever written too. I’m continuously surprised at all the support I’ve gotten, so to celebrate… let’s do some drabbles! 
> 
> Give me a pairing/characters and a short prompt, like a few words or a sentence or two, and I’ll try to write something. (No guarantees on quality, haha…) Anons are welcome too. You can also message me on my sparkling new twitter @cthchewy
> 
> Last time I used twitter was… 2008 maybe? I’m, uh, probably just going to let it rot because I suck at social media. But yeah, if you feel more comfortable DMing a request, there it is.


	12. Confessions over Chamomile

In the aftermath of the Rite of Rebirth, everything seemed to be hurtling toward some unknown end. The Western Church had sent followers to rob the Central Church. It was as blatant a declaration of war as possible. They were no longer content just to have partially separated due to disagreements about scripture, but rather intended on usurping the Central Church’s place in all Fódlan.

Where had such ambition come from? Was it only for power and riches, or did they truly believe that evil forces were at work in Garreg Mach, and that what they did was the will of the goddess? Perhaps it made no difference. People could find reasons to justify anything. Their supporters were calling for the removal of the archbishop now, stating that she had overstepped her bounds in ordering the executions of those who opposed her.

Archbishop Rhea had a firm hand, it was true. She fought to maintain order no matter what calls had to be made, and at times these decisions came uncomfortably close to crossing the moral line. This latest incident proved it even more than the church’s takeover of Gaspard.

In their house there was Mercedes who thought the archbishop’s choice was right – heretics should be punished for defiling sacred places. All the trespassers knew full well the crimes they were committing, and none of them did so because they were coerced or had no other way to survive. The archbishop and the knights had to exert their influence to protect their property and the innocents in their care – that was right and just. Despite her caring nature, Mercedes had a spine of steel when it came to striking down those who would take advantage of the weak. For her, it was no longer a matter of mere beliefs when the lives of civilians came into the crossfire, and she was convinced that showing any reluctance would embolden their enemies to attack again.

Then there was Ashe, who believed the goddess was a starlight being made entirely of Grace and second chances, and that even the worst crimes didn’t make a person irredeemable in her eyes. He didn’t dare say it aloud, but it was obvious that he was conflicted about the “peacekeeping” actions of the church. Violence begets violence. If Christophe had been spared, Lord Lonato might never have become so radicalized in his grief. And if Lonato’s grievances had been taken seriously by the archbishop, perhaps the Western Church would not have gained so much support from the people of Gaspard. The other Blue Lions fell somewhere on this spectrum, and the only thing they could seem to agree on these days was that it was a shame that it happened at all.

The would-be thieves were executed swiftly and without trial, out of fear that allowing them to speak in their own defense would garner sympathy for their cause. The knights worked quickly to subdue the Western Church, and they claimed that would be the end of it. The instigators of all the Kingdom’s strife had been struck down. Still, Dimitri had trouble believing it.

He was proved correct all too soon. They had less than a week of normalcy before Sylvain received a letter from his father the Margrave. He pretended to be fine, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.

Dimitri had been informed as well, that the knights of Seiros had been called upon to help retrieve the Lance of Ruin. It had been stolen by the disgraced former heir of House Gautier, Miklan.

A relic to counter a relic… Of course the archbishop assigned the Blue Lions to this task. Most of the knights were busy subduing the Western Church, and they were the next best thing.

With the Sword of the Creator in his hands, Professor Byleth was the talk of the monastery even more than he had been before. It wouldn’t be a surprise if word of it had started to make its way outside as well. The Knights of Seiros weren’t exactly known for their stealth, and their excited conversations could easily be overheard by any visitors, who would in turn take that knowledge outside the walls.

The Heroes’ Relics were things of legend, and their wielders were known and feared across the land. It was impossible to be anonymous when one was in possession of such a weapon, yet the identities of the wielders often became subsumed by the notoriety of the relics. Outside the nobles who knew her before she gave up her title, few knew the name of Cassandra of House Charon. And outside of the Knights, few knew Catherine without the connection to her sword. The knights and monastery inhabitants called her Thunder Catherine, the villagers nearby called her Lady Thunder, and even further abroad it sometimes became just Thunderbrand, the name of the weapon becoming the name of the knight.

That was what it meant to be a relic wielder, and that was the sort of fate that was to befall Byleth Eisner: a commoner, a mercenary, a friend, a dutiful son, a trusted instructor. All those things would be forgotten or ignored once it became common knowledge that he had been chosen by the Sword of the Creator, the greatest relic in existence.

There had been a rebirth of sorts that night in the Holy Mausoleum, but instead of the goddess descending once more from her home among the stars, it was Professor Byleth who went in a mercenary and came out a holy knight.

Dimitri worked closely with the professor as they planned for the next mission. Miklan’s bandits had set up in southeastern Fraldarius territory, and Dimitri was very familiar with that terrain. The Fraldarius summer estate was by the coast there, and he had spent many youthful days in that area playing with his childhood friends. On clear days, they liked to imagine they could see across the bay to Derdriu. They raced along the waves and boasted that they could swim the distance, too.

It was impossible, of course. What bits of land they could spot were just tiny islands and rocky outcroppings, but that didn’t stop them from pretending. Sylvain would cry out to the gulls flying overhead, transforming them into wyvern riders from the east. Sometimes they came as invaders; sometimes they came as reinforcements.

Those days were long gone. Yet another piece of their childhood would be stained with blood.

After lessons ended and the other members of their house left to train or prepare by themselves, Dimitri stayed with the professor to talk strategy. If the mission were anything else, Sylvain would have been there, too. He was their best strategist despite his usual carefree demeanor, but it was his own flesh and blood they were being sent to kill. He deserved what little kindness they could give.

“Conand used to be the lighthouse for a Fraldarius naval base until it was relocated. The old base was abandoned at around the time House Galatea joined the Kingdom and installed their navy a bit to the south,” Dimitri said to the professor.

Byleth nodded. “A blind spot between two territories…” He sighed and stretched, getting up away from the map.

Dimitri got up too, and they decided to take a break from the classroom to go to the Battalion Guild and see what was left to work with if the church couldn’t spare them anything. Jeralt’s mercenaries would follow the professor, but most of the battalions the students were used to commanding were comprised of church soldiers, unless as nobles they had been able to apply for those from their own territories.

When they arrived, it was as they feared. The listings from the Church of Seiros had been taken down. Dimitri didn’t even have the heart to look at the other list, knowing it was mostly local militia groups and roving bands of youth who thought they could play at being mercenaries.

“The Kingdom will send men,” he said, trying to convince himself. “They ought to. I’ll write to Margrave Gautier and Duke Fraldarius. Count Galatea might be willing to lend a hand as well, though we would have to offer a higher rate of monetary compensation for the aid, as House Galatea has fallen on hard times in recent years.” He wondered if it was obvious that he left out his own uncle from this list.

Professor Byleth quietly thought on this. “We can shift things around. Felix fights better without a battalion. He wants to focus on swordsmanship rather than leading.”

“It’s an _officers_ academy. We’re here to learn how to lead.”

Byleth shrugged. “The mission is unconventional. It’ll be fine just this once.” He turned then, to the battalion guildmaster who had been glancing at them sympathetically. “Is Claude still available?”

The guildmaster responded with an easy nod. “Sure. He’s a pretty popular guy these days, been doing a few escorts for fellow merchants when their routes coincide, but nothing big since last month. I don’t think anyone’s crazy enough to take a single rider out into battle except you professors. No offense.”

“What are you thinking, Professor?” Dimitri asked.

“Hanneman says he’s skilled, and I made a promise.” That was all the Professor said before signing for Claude’s services.

Claude would be coming to the monastery soon. If not tomorrow then the day after, on the weekend. It’s not that he wasn’t a fairly frequent visitor to the monastery, but until now it had been easy to confine his presence to the marketplace or with the Golden Deer. Dimitri didn’t know how he should feel about the prospect of meeting again after everything and… working together. Training and fighting and living on the road together. He only hoped he wouldn’t make an even bigger fool of himself.

* * *

Claude spent some time away from the monastery, giving much-needed attention to shaping his little burgeoning trade empire. Granted, most of it ran itself just fine without him – the old Riegan spies were having a ball with what he’d given them to work with – but actually traveling with caravans taught him a lot more about Fódlan than he could learn from books.

Before meeting Dimitri, he had plotted out routes into the Empire, thinking the Adrestian market much easier to access. From what he’d read and heard from travelers, Derdriu was trendy, but Enbarr was outright hedonistic. The upper classes there spared nothing on luxury goods. In Enbarr, people couldn’t claim to run in fashionable circles unless they were able to regularly treat their friends to the best food, drink, and song. They’d had their fill of the sweetest fruits and most tender meats. Now it was the more exotic the better. Other vices were popular too: smoking, gambling, and high-class prostitution just to name a few.

Tea – proper tea leaves – came to Leicester through proximity to Almyra, and was treated much the same by the border. It was a daily drink affordable to all, and only the most delicate leaves or the blends with expensive flavorings were put in fancy tins to be sold as gifts. This attitude shifted as one went further west, and on the other side of Derdriu even plain tea started being sold with fancy names like Seiros Tea. Once out of Leicester, well, nearly all blends containing any amount of proper tea leaves were strictly a luxury, and one that the nobles of Adrestia partook in far more than those of Faerghus, who sometimes had “weird religious hang-ups about herbs and humility” as Claude was told.

(But as he found out, it was moreso that they had strong traditions of herbal remedies and didn’t see much of a _need _for foreign leaf juice when they had their own already.)

Adrestia was the logical choice, and one of his first steps after securing a base of operations was to get his products and spies across Myrddin. That was easy enough, but his Empire trade routes abruptly stopped at the first big city. The Adrestian merchants wanted to buy in bulk and package the goods themselves. The lords in Varley and Hrym wouldn’t allow Leicester merchants to sell outside these trading hubs by the border, “to protect the local economies”. The only way forward was to receive a personal letter of recommendation from an imperial noble.

It had been a few weeks, nearly a month since he last went up to Garreg Mach’s marketplace to sell. The stall was mostly manned by Luca unless Claude, being the capricious boss he was, suddenly felt like paying his lovely customers a visit. With the Faerghus route unexpectedly opened up first, perhaps it was time to make some _Adrestian_ friends in high places.

Today Claude was going up to the monastery to deal with other business. After returning from his latest caravan escort, he found he’d received a summons from the Battalion Guild notifying him of a potential hire for a more involved mission. That practically screamed ‘church business’. He suspected one of the academy’s instructors had need of his services once more. On top of that, Lorenz had sent a short note requesting his presence.

Still, such business wasn’t likely to take all day, so he planned to relieve Luca at the stall later on, or at least to stop by with more products. He packed his bags with the most exotic teas he could think of. Exotic-according-to-Adrestia, anyway. Four Spice, Cinnamon, Ginger. Those were the warm, spicy flavors that sold most in the Empire. Even the famous Hresvelg blend was flavored with a mix of expensive spices and citrus peels, and none of those spices was native to Fódlan. This attitude was in stark contrast to the people of Faerghus who often preferred locally sourced flavorings like apple, berries, mint, and other herbs.

Claude had barely led his horse inside when Lorenz marched into the visitors’ stable and pulled him into the farthest corner. He waved his right hand in a circle while mumbling an incantation. A sigil appeared in the air, same as the one Marianne had cast onto the walls of the Golden Deer classroom last time they’d met.

“They’re dead,” Lorenz said.

Mind going so abruptly from tea to murder, Claude blinked in confusion and shook his head. “What? Who’s dead?”

“The bandits! They were to be transported to my father for questioning, but before Gloucester escorts could fetch them, they were found dead in the cells.”

“Whoa, whoa. Wait, hold up.” Claude held up his hands to pause the conversation so he could think. “When did this happen?”

Lorenz bit his lips and ran a hand through his hair. “The guards say there was no sign of a break-in, so they think it was suicide. The bandits could have had poison capsules hidden on their persons. But the Western Church broke in during the Rite of Rebirth, I’m sure you’ve heard… Everyone was at the ceremony then. They could have sent a second group to get rid of their failed assassins.”

“You think it was the Western Church?”

“I don’t… I can’t be sure. I don’t know what to think.”

“It’s been more than a _week_.”

“I _know_,” Lorenz huffed. “Perhaps they were just busy, but the guards didn’t let me know of this in a timely manner. That or-- or the Central Church is covering something up, too.”

Claude looked around, for even with the privacy ward up, anyone could just peek in and _see_ the two of them chatting. Reading lips wasn’t an uncommon skill. Marginally satisfied, he murmured to Lorenz, “Be careful, and try not to be alone for the time being. I’ll snoop around and see what I can dig up.”

* * *

Professor Byleth made good on his promise. He met Claude at the Battalion Guild’s tent, nodded in greeting, and proceeded to explain the upcoming mission. He was curt, efficient, and professional when discussing killing for pay. The merc background was obvious.

It was bandits again, though this time with the added complication that their leader was a disgraced former noble. The Kingdom was really having some terrible luck this year, though perhaps that wasn’t a surprise. After the recent rebellion, it was natural for smaller groups of insurgents to take advantage of the chaos.

The professor hadn’t yet decided who Claude would accompany into battle. He was waiting to see how many other battalions he could scrounge up while the Knights of Seiros were off crusading.

“If we can round up enough Pegasus knights for Ingrid’s battalion, I’ll assign you as scout for a ground unit instead,” he said.

“Should you really be telling me about personnel shortages?” Claude asked. “I did notice that security seems a bit lax today compared to the other times I’ve been here, but I don’t think the bishops and other church-y higher ups want it known that the monastery is vulnerable now. After all, weren’t you attacked here just recently?”

Byleth shrugged. “It’s obvious to anyone with eyes.”

“Right… Well, I suppose I should get to know the members of your class while I’m here.”

“Should I call a class meeting?”

Claude grinned. “Nah, I think it’ll be more fun if I meet them on my own terms.”

The subtly exasperated _look_ the usually blank-faced professor gave him could shame even the monastery’s stray cats. It was a look that mixed ‘no comment’ with ‘this had better not result in students crying to me over shit you pulled’. Hanneman had treated him as a potential convert to crestology, but with Byleth it almost felt like he was being adopted as a member of the house, to be praised and scolded and guided on the path to knighthood. This feeling only grew with Byleth’s parting words.

“Stay and train with them this week, if you can. It’ll give me a better read on who to pair you with. You’ll be compensated for your time, of course.”

Claude left his company with a casual salute at the gate, and from there he went about trying to find the Blue Lions students without raising too many suspicions. He had a right to be in this part of the monastery without an escort, even if said right hadn’t been explicitly granted, so he strolled in as if he belonged.

Some of the Blue Lions were familiar from a distance. He’d seen them around the market or on the few times he came in to practice with Hilda in the training grounds. Knowing the Faerghus nobility’s reputation for exalting chivalry and combat readiness, that was his first stop. No doubt a few of them would choose to train even on a free day.

And there were three of them! Three!

Claude called out a greeting as soon as he spotted them. “Hey! You guys Blue Lions? I’m Claude. Professor Byleth hired me to help on your next mission.”

The two who had been practicing with lances stopped to offer quick bows.

“You’re the wyvern rider, yes? There’s a chance you’ll be assigned to me,” the girl said. “Ingrid Brandl Galatea, at your service.” She eyed him warily, but propriety won out and Claude was treated to another, more proper bow.

“Oh, and I’m Ashe! Nice to meet you!” the boy said. That he didn’t choose to include his family name meant that he either didn’t have one, or it was insignificant. Either way, it marked him as a commoner.

Ingrid held her lance with an ease that spoke of years of training. Ashe, on the other hand, gripped his with hesitance. Every prospective student had to demonstrate capability in at least one form of combat to be accepted to the Officers Academy, so this must be a secondary weapon for him.

“We should spar sometime,” Claude offered. “Well, some _other_ time. I’m mostly an archer, but swords and axes are fine in a pinch. Ah, but I’m terrible with the lance!”

Ashe laughed nervously. “M-me too, unfortunately.”

“That’s nonsense,” Ingrid said, her mouth set in a stern line. “You’re doing _great_. You just need more practice.”

Claude turned his attention to the third student in this corner of the training grounds, the lone swordsman who had been steadily whacking away at a dummy this whole time, dark and brooding. Ingrid suddenly remembered him too, and she smacked the back of his knees with the pole of her lance to get him to turn around.

“Introduce yourself,” she hissed.

“Felix.”

There was silence for a short moment as everyone waited for him to finish a proper greeting, but he did not. Ingrid glared at him. He glared back. With a huff, he finally continued. “Of House Fraldarius.”

Ingrid nodded, pleased, but then Felix kept going, and it wasn’t to say ‘nice to meet you’. “If you’re not here to spar, I’ve no use for you.”

“Felix!”

Claude laughed it off. “Sure, sure. I’ll be training with you guys for the mission, so let’s do that soon.”

The Blue Lions, from the few members he’d met, seemed to have a different atmosphere about them compared to the Golden Deer. They were more… intense, for lack of a better word. Serious, maybe. It made sense since Faerghus seemed to have rebellions and conspiracies cropping up on a regular basis. The students of this house were much more likely to have to engage in real battles once their term at the academy was over and they returned home, and they knew it.

They also, unlike the Golden Deer, didn’t seem to be on top of the latest rumors. None of these three recognized Claude as having anything to do with Dimitri, which was honestly for the best. Ingrid and Ashe pointed Claude toward the greenhouse or the kitchens to find Dedue, and the knight’s hall or the cathedral for Dimitri.

“Hmm, or he could be in the library, or the classroom?” Ashe shrugged. “His Highness likes to make the rounds and check up on everyone. He should be easy to spot, anyway.”

“Mercie and Annie are out shopping,” Ingrid said. Then she rolled her eyes and added, “Sylvain’s probably out in town too, chasing skirts. It might be easier for you to wait to meet them.”

Claude nodded and thanked them, and was on his way. Though he’d already met Dedue and Dimitri, now he had a reason to go snooping in _all_ the places they’d mentioned. The library! The cathedral! Surely Garreg Mach’s secrets would be kept in those places.

* * *

The cathedral at Garreg Mach was the second oldest building of the monastery, built shortly after the Holy Mausoleum. But while the mausoleum hid most of its grandeur underground, the cathedral had it out on full display. Aside from the main area of worship, there were little alcoves and back doors everywhere that led to housing for the clergy, servants, and orphans. On some days after morning mass, when he didn’t have prior obligations, Dimitri stayed in the cathedral to help out at the orphanage there.

He helped with daily chores, sat and read with the children in the courtyard, or taught them the sword. The children were mostly too young to truly understand what it meant that he was a prince, even if their caretakers showed deference to him. They weren’t afraid to jump all over him and demand that he toss them into the air or carry them over his shoulders like sacks of grain. To them he was just someone who understood their pain.

Dimitri relived his childhood vicariously through the orphans. He took on Glenn’s role, to protect and train and tease his little brothers and sisters. He hoped, deep in his heart, that his love and Archbishop Rhea’s love would be enough to drive out the demons that hovered in each orphan child’s mind. Thoughts of revenge, of hunting down whichever bandits took their parents, or of how if only they hadn’t fallen sick their parents wouldn’t have met with an accident on the way to the local doctor… It was much too late for Dimitri, but for them…

The youngest sat with her legs around his neck and his hair gripped tight in her tiny fists. She steered the crown prince of Faerghus toward the well behind the cathedral. He also had two boys, one under each arm, and each holding a bucket for the water they’d been sent to fetch. Behind them, an older boy and girl were ‘keeping watch’ with wooden swords in their hands.

Dimitri set the two boys down as they approached the well. They tied the first bucket and lowered it. The crank was creaky; it would have to be oiled. There was a rustling sound, too, that… wasn’t quite right.

Dimitri noticed the movement first, from the corner of his eye. Something was shaking in the boughs of a tall spruce tree nearby. Was it squirrels fighting, perhaps? Or birds? The children noticed shortly after.

“Mitri, a cat’s stuck in the tree again, you have to save it!” Little Runa pointed it out from her perch on his shoulders.

A thump, a muffled curse, more shaking.

“N-not a cat!” a familiar voice called from the tree. Then, quieter, it said, “…Though I wouldn’t mind some saving.” With a bit more maneuvering, Claude popped into view from the other side of the tree. He was clinging to dear life, arms wrapped tightly around the trunk, footing quite shaky. His knees were trembling even as he grinned widely. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this!”

“How did you even…”

“I saw a girl climbing trees like a mountain goat climbs mountains. I thought I could do it too! Well, not like her, but with a bit of engineering,” he said, tilting his chin toward a space on the ground below.

Claude’s bow and quiver were neatly placed against the wall of the cathedral. There was an arrow in the ground with a rope tied to it – the spare rope for the well. He had shot it over a tree branch and used it to climb his way up, but it had slipped off before he could get down.

Dimitri tamped down on the smile that threatened to break free from his lips at the sight of Claude up to his usual antics. “You didn’t stop to think of the consequences if you couldn’t?”

“I did, but the rewards outweighed the risks. There are so many things I could harvest if only I could get them from the treetops.”

Dimitri looked up at the tall spruce tree once more. It was old and gnarled, likely one of the original trees that had been around since Garreg Mach’s founding. The tips of its lowest and widest branches now just barely brushed the stone of the cathedral’s second floor, which meant Claude had climbed high enough to peer into the second floor windows. The rooms here in the back of the cathedral were for its various inhabitants. Servants, orphans, and lower ranked clergy on the first floor and basements. _Bishops_ on the second floor and higher. In fact, very few high ranking clergy members had their rooms across the bridge unless they were in charge of something pertaining to the students or the knights who stayed on that side.

When he last saw Claude, that night he overheard the conversation with Lorenz, he began to have suspicions. Claude’s recent closeness with the Golden Deer belied his true origins and also explained Lorenz’s somewhat knowing attitude the first time they visited the tea house together. Edelgard’s cryptic warning made sense as well now, if she suspected even so early on that Claude was an Alliance House Agent. At the very least he was definitely an informant as merchants often were. To be fair, he didn’t seem to be trying very hard to hide it. Looking back on it, there were many times Claude seemed to tease Dimitri about his ulterior motives.

The specific noble house that employed him was still unknown. His intentions toward the other nations of Fódlan were unknown as well. Dimitri wasn’t any good at treading carefully, but for this he would try. First things first, Claude had to be rescued from the tree before he could be interrogated.

Dimitri stretched out his arms. “Jump down, then.”

At the same time, Claude said, “Toss me the rope.”

They both paused, unsure how to proceed.

“Jump, jump!” the children chanted. The two filled buckets were sitting by the well. With that done, they gathered to see the man stuck in the tree.

“Jump-jump!” Runa giggled, gesturing by tugging Dimitri’s hair up and down. She scrambled off his back to rejoin her friends.

When Dimitri looked back up, Claude’s face was buried in the bark. “Ugh, why are your tiny minions so cute? I’m… so embarrassed right now. But here goes!” He pushed off with a grimace that said he fully expected to crash into the ground.

It was too sudden. Dimitri wasn’t prepared yet, and for a brief second felt his heart fill with dread until he lunged forth and felt Claude’s weight settle into his arms.

They were both breathing heavily and holding each other so, so close. Claude was pressed flush against his chest, that braid tickling his throat, smelling of woodlands and spice. It brought forth unbidden memories of their time together. Their first meeting when Claude had jumped down from his wyvern. Claude covered in soot, paying the price for his endless curiosity. White roses and stolen kisses.

Dimitri held on for far too long. He held on even as he asked, “Why would you ever start with this one? There are plenty of easier trees to climb if you wanted to try out a new skill.”

Claude perked up then, and dug through the pouch at his side. “Look, spruce tips! I can make tea with these,” he said, popping a small handful into his mouth and just… and just eating a tree. Claude hopped out of Dimitri’s arms to share his bounty with the curious children, whose faces lit up when they tasted the tender new leaves. They must have been delicious.

“Thank you, Mr. Cat!”

“Let’s gather some more!”

“Yeah, once we bring the water back, we’ll get the others to come help.”

“Only the ones that look _exactly_ like this, okay? The needles have to be rounded.” Claude pointed to another tree nearby. “See that one there, with the flat needles and red berries? That’s yew, and it’s poisonous.”

They nodded and scampered off with their water buckets, stopping only to say goodbye to Dimitri and make him promise to play with them more next time. Dimitri was left alone with Claude, to start a very necessary conversation that he did not want to have.

“Would you like to have tea, with me?” Dimitri’s words came out terribly stilted. “In my quarters?”

Claude stared, eyes wide like a spooked deer. Then his eyes narrowed. He squinted at Dimitri’s face searching for something. “Are you _propositioning _me?”

“Propo… No! Oh, no! Claude, I would never dare think to--!” Dimitri seized up. His limbs were caught between the urge to flail and the urge to hunch in on himself, to minimize the threat that his large frame posed. He sputtered apologies until Claude’s fingers brushed across his elbow.

“It’s okay. Really. We have things to discuss about the upcoming mission, and… I’ve missed having tea with you.”

Dimitri forgot whatever else he was about to say. He sucked in a deep breath, nodded, and led the way to his room without another word from either of them.

Once the heavy door was closed behind them, Claude began to look around. He took in the sparse décor. Books and half-written letters stacked neatly on the desk. Whetstone, weapons oil, and spare bits of armor in the corner. The space didn’t feel very lived in aside from those small details. Claude doubtless found it boring – found _Dimitri_ boring – but that shouldn’t matter anymore.

There was only one chair, so Dimitri moved the small end table between it and the bed. Dimitri took the seat on the bed – it would be awkward otherwise, wouldn’t it? – and set about preparing his favorite tea. “Please feel free to take a seat,” he said, assuming Claude would have nothing to do except just that. But in the next moment, he realized he’d underestimated Claude’s ability to seek out curiosities. He was still standing by the door, hunched over and deeply contemplating the patterns in the wood. Or, more specifically, the wards drawn so faintly upon it that it blended into the wood to the untrained eye.

“These wards are permanent? And active now?”

“Semi-permanent. They can still be erased, but yes, the dampening spells are active as long as the sigils are intact.”

“Hmm…” Claude examined a sigil, lightly tracing it with a finger. “This mark here is for silence, I recognize it. But what about this?” He pointed to the outer ring of runes.

“An anti-magic ward. No spells may be cast in this room, supposedly.”

Claude whistled lowly. “Impressive! Are these standard for all the dorm rooms?”

“Not quite. While I am but a normal student in many ways, a prince’s business does often require a bit more discretion. Which is why--”

“Why I feel it safe to tell you that I’ve managed to get a man into Kleiman’s household!”

Dimitri was holding his teapot with one hand on the metal handle above and the other holding the bottom to tip it. He was so shocked by Claude’s sudden declaration that he forgot where he was pouring and looked up.

This time it was Claude who lunged forth to tip the teapot back into the correct position. “Whoa, careful there!” He put his hands over Dimitri’s to pour the two cups, after which the absolute _imp_ settled himself right next to Dimitri on the bed. “Mmm, chamomile, my favorite!”

“What… what game is this?” Dimitri muttered.

Claude’s tone remained light as he replied, “No game, just honesty. You caught me red-handed just now, I saw it on your face.”

“You admit you are a spy.”

“I’m certainly not denying it.”

“This is a serious matter, Claude. Do you know what will happen should I report you? In this climate? You’ll be charged with high crimes against the faith and executed.”

Claude shrugged. “Would you really? And implicate all the Golden Deer, give Leicester’s nobles more cause to resent the church and potentially turn them toward sympathizing with your enemies?” He smiled, sly and predatory. “I really don’t think you want that, especially since you’d be implicating yourself as well. You gave me leave to enter the School of Sorcery. I’ve sent men to infiltrate Duscur partly on your behalf.”

“And why would you do such a thing?” It didn’t make any sense. What would a Leicester spy gain from knowing the inner workings of Lord Kleiman’s governing of Duscur? The Alliance was always neutral, always compromising when it came to relations with the other nations of Fódlan. They would support Faerghus only as long as it didn’t pit them against any other force. At the first sign of aggression, they would retreat into neutrality once more.

Claude took another sip from his tea before setting it down. He folded his hands on his lap and looked forward, pointedly avoiding Dimitri’s gaze. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he said. “Someone, some force, has been targeting the noble heirs of the Alliance. They may have orchestrated Godfrey von Riegan’s demise; they’re _certainly_ after Lorenz now. It might be connected to the people who want _you_ dead.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“I don’t.” He nodded. “But even if my guess is wrong and they’re not connected, I still think the people who are a threat to you would not play nice with Leicester if they managed to depose you. I want what’s best for Leicester, and that means you on the throne of Faerghus and our mutual nonaggression treaties intact. So on behalf of House Riegan, I’m here to _unofficially_ renew our support of House Blaiddyd.”

Thoughts whirling, Dimitri was silent for what felt like an eternity. He didn’t know how he should feel. Betrayed? Yes, there was some of that. It hurt to know that what they had was a lie from the very beginning, with every interaction carefully planned to seduce him. It hurt to admit that he was so starved for affection that he would so easily fall for a spy’s trap.

Yet there was relief as well. If Claude’s feelings had all been masterfully faked, then Dimitri hadn’t hurt him after all.

And then there was hope. Perhaps it was stupid to want to trust Claude even after all that, even after it had been proven that Dimitri couldn’t tell when he was lying, but if working with Claude could bring him closer to justice, then…

“Riegan’s spies are truly as formidable as their reputation. Very well. If you are willing to be used, then I will use you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri is one of those guys who’s happiest when smothered in dogs and children. He wants to hug them, but is afraid of his own strength, so he prefers when tiny cute things crawl all over him on their own. Idk, that’s just my image of him, lol.
> 
> This chapter (and real life) seriously kicked my ass. I kept wanting to be like, “And now Miklan!” No? Not yet? Okay, “and now Miklan!!” Wait. Still not yet? Fuck it.
> 
> Also, I legit bought pine needle tea because I just Needed To Know what it looked and tasted like. For this fic. *cries in overly-invested nerd*
> 
> It’s completely clear when you brew it, and smells like a forest. It’s on the sweet side for a tea, actually! Like chamomile-level sweetness. Super tasty with a bit of honey. Very little bitterness (none unless you steep for like 20 minutes, and then only a hint), but nutty and herbal, and maybe somewhat citrusy? It’s astringent and you get that subtle dryness in your mouth like if you drink too much green tea. I wanna say Almyran pine needle tea, at least the lower grade stuff that gets exported, tends to be made from older leaves and some twigs to give it a tad more woody bitterness. And the in-game description says it’s oxidized, which would change the flavor and make it more smoky, possibly???
> 
> Welp, in this world it has its roots as a survival food from when the tribes along the outskirts of the country were semi-nomadic herders. Sometimes it was difficult to find fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement their diet, but there were tons of pine trees so they ate the trees. (EAT THE TREES!!) They gathered the cones to harvest pine nuts and made tea from the needles. The popularity of pine needle tea grew as Almyra’s naval prowess increased. Fresh pine needles were way easier to carry than fresh fruits/vegetables, and prevented scurvy just as well. But the storage conditions on the ships weren’t the best, so some of the pine needles ended up oxidizing and partly fermenting, leading to a different type of product which is also now popular.
> 
> In modern Fodlan, both fresh and oxidized pine needles are a bit of an acquired taste because it does smell like a whole-ass tree. (Fresh tree or lightly charred tree? Your choice.) A lot of people just think they’ll hate it without giving it a try, so they never realize that it’s actually very easy to drink. I think that says something about the characters in-game whose favorite tea is pine needles. They’re secretly sweet on the inside. (Or maybe they just really really like frolicking/napping in the woods.)


	13. Sons of the Frontier (1/2)

The class met in the training grounds at the designated time. Professor Byleth was already there, with Claude standing behind him. Dimitri was prepared for Claude to be formally introduced to them, and for some of his classmates to realize this was who Dimitri had been seeing, so he tried his best to appear neutral. They’d discussed it beforehand, that they would be courteous to each other.

“We broke up amicably,” Claude had said. “Or at least we’re pretending we did. I mean, pretending to pretend we did. We were young and stupid and got ahead of ourselves. It took a bit of a shock for us to realize it couldn’t be a long term thing. So now we’re broken up, it was actually messy but we’re pretending it wasn’t, our hearts are a little bruised, and we’re reluctant to talk about it because it’s embarrassing to have misjudged so badly.”

“I dislike having to be dishonest with my class, but… You’re sure they’ll come to that conclusion?”

“With a little bit of misdirection, absolutely. And really, what part of that is dishonest from your side? All you have to do is be yourself.”

“You think you know me so well?” Surely they hadn’t known each other long enough. Dimitri didn’t consider himself to be mysterious in any way, but it wasn’t as if he had a lack of… not so much secrets, but things he had never spoken of to anyone else.

“I know _people_. I have to, or I’d be dead a million times over by now.”

Dimitri had shook his head at that, which Claude took as permission to enact his ‘misdirection’, whatever form that would take. Some days ago, Dimitri had been lamenting that he had no knowledge in the keeping of spies, and now he’d just been _gifted_ one by House Riegan. Split loyalties aside, he would defer to Claude when it came to controlling information, at least for the time being.

Professor Byleth made the introduction, and before anyone else could make any connections, Felix immediately jumped at the chance to test himself against a new opponent. He’d grown tired of outpacing all his classmates when it came to the sword. All except Dimitri, whom he despised. A smirk grew on his face as he tossed his favored practice sword to Claude and snatched another for himself out of Sylvain’s hands.

“Hey!”

Felix ignored Sylvain’s protest. “_Now_ you’re here to spar. Fight me.”

“Sure…?” Claude shrugged, holding the sword gingerly. “I hope you remember I only said I was _okay_ with swords. Please don’t kill me. I’d hate to raise prices on you for damaging the goods.”

The others, including Dimitri, should have started getting ready to practice, but Felix was making a spectacle of himself again, and those were always worth paying attention to. This could really go either of two ways – a skilled exhibition match like when Professor Byleth accepted his challenges, or a one-sided slaughter like when he gave amateurs too much credit. It had happened before, that Felix would get so excited at the prospect of a good spar that he bought into a cocky opponent’s boasts and overestimated their abilities. It was good to have a healer at the ready in those cases.

Ingrid rolled her eyes from the sidelines. “Go easy on him, Felix.”

Felix ignored that as well. He gave Claude’s form a once over and clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Trying to get me to underestimate you? Nice try, but I won’t fall for it.”

He lunged at Claude to a chorus of gasps. Annette even brought her hands up to cover her eyes, fearing for the worst. But Claude’s reflexes were extraordinarily quick. He dodged, then dodged again, effortlessly against Felix’s testing strikes. Felix growled, ramping up the speed of his attacks until Claude was forced to parry.

“What was that? Still pretending to be an amateur?”

“Ah, whoops. Guess you saw through my strategy.”

“Don’t patronize me. Your grip is weak, but I know a swordsman’s stance when I see one. Stop dodging and _come at me_.”

“Hey, dodging’s how I survive, don’t knock it!”

They circled each other and then both stepped in with a clash of blades. Physically, they were quite evenly matched. Though Claude usually favored looser clothes that gave him the illusion of more bulk, when standing right next to Felix they actually appeared to be of the same height and build. Claude had less straightforward power in his strikes, but was slightly more agile. He grinned as he whirled away, only to take a swipe at Felix’s feet.

Felix stepped back and took a deep breath. A calm came over him that only ever manifested when he had to focus on a fight. Their blades met again, and again. Felix’s slight edge in strength grew more apparent over time, as did his ability to conserve it in a duel. He fought in a style reminiscent of the great swordmasters of Faerghus – fast and hard, and with minimal energy wasted.

Claude’s attacks, while they came less frequently as he began to tire, never failed to target weak spots that pushed Felix into re-centering himself many times. He fought like an assassin, graceful leaps and twirls concealing the direction of his blade, which in a real battle would have found itself slicing at joints and tendons and sliding between ribs.

With a final lunge, Felix struck his opponent’s blade from his hand. It fell with a clatter. Claude raised his hands in defeat, though he was grinning even as his chest heaved with the force of his breaths.

Felix was less winded and more guarded with his expressions, though to those who knew him he was satisfied. Having bested a worthy opponent, he was rightfully proud.

The match had been thrilling, but now it had drawn to a close. As Professor Byleth stepped up to give both duelists some tips, the rest of the class began whispering among themselves. It was possible the comments had been going on in the background, but Dimitri had been engrossed in watching the fighters, so he only now noticed it.

“That day, Lorenz said--?” Ashe cut himself off. “No, never mind.”

Ingrid, who hadn’t been in the dining hall that day the Golden Deer came bearing gossip from the tea shop, glanced at her classmates questioningly.

Annette gasped. “Oh gosh, he really must be _that _Claude. I’ll tell you later,” she said to Ingrid, and then shot an apologetic look toward Dimitri.

Sylvain looked like the cat that got into the cream. He let out a low wolf whistle when he caught Dimitri’s eye. “You know, Your Highness, I was starting to think I didn’t know your tastes at all, with how Hilda made him sound like a big buff Raphael-on-a-wyvern. But…” His eyes swept appraisingly between Claude and Felix. “I see your type remains the same as ever.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Dimitri replied. It was the truth. Sylvain was trying to insinuate something about Felix and Claude, but even if Dimitri had once held romantic interest in them, they were very different people. What did they have in common besides sword fighting ability? That wasn’t even a skill he knew Claude had until moments ago.

“No need to be shy! That Adrestian girl you were into, she was like that too, wasn’t she? A petite beauty with a sharp tongue, or so I heard.”

Dimitri grew even more confused, and more frustrated. “That was so long ago. It has no bearing on the present. Speak plainly, if you’ve a point to make.”

Sylvain shrugged, but didn’t rise to the challenge. He was very smug though, and obviously convinced that he was correct. Dimitri was eager to drop the topic as well. He picked up his practice lance and nodded toward Ingrid, who was the least likely to pester him about Claude, if only because she didn’t know anything yet. “We’ve wasted enough time today,” he said. “Let’s get in some sparring before our time here is up.”

Sometime later, after his match with Ingrid had concluded and he had moved on to individual drills, Dimitri spied Claude over at the shooting range with Ashe. After that, he managed to tune everything out until their time at the training grounds was up. Professor Byleth called for them to pack up their things, though as most of his classmates trailed out to the dining hall for lunch, he motioned for Dimitri to stay behind. Sylvain and Claude were there as well.

The professor’s expression was one that could pass for contemplative. “Felix probably wouldn’t mind a battalion if it was someone like you,” he said to Claude.

Claude stretched, casually slinging his arms behind his head. “You mean he wouldn’t mind a battalion if it wasn’t a battalion?”

“But we’re short on soldiers. We can’t afford that luxury. I need you on wyvernback; you’ll go with Sylvain.”

They all knew what this decision meant. Even Claude – his keen mind would have picked up on some of it. The professor was giving Sylvain authority directly below Dimitri for this mission. Ashe hadn’t been ready for such responsibility when they had confronted Lord Lonato, and honestly he still wasn’t. But more than that, Ashe hadn’t had the resolve because Lord Lonato’s case hadn’t been so clear cut.

Sylvain was ready and willing to put Miklan down. This was his fight more than anyone else’s, so he would lead the charge. As a cavalier, Sylvain needed troops with high mobility, and that was where Claude came in. To keep him safe from ambush, Claude would be his scout, an eye in the sky. Behind them, Dimitri would command the main force.

“Sure thing,” Claude said.

Sylvain nodded as well. “If you say so, Professor.”

They glanced at each other and a look passed between them, but Dimitri didn’t know what it meant. It was over quickly, after which the professor dismissed them.

Claude kept his eyes down when he passed Dimitri with a muttered “Your Highness”, and that… That stung more than he was prepared for. Claude was right. It was easy to keep up a ruse that was almost completely the truth.

* * *

They were on the road, marching north in the company of Duke Fraldarius, to take care of the bandits who had set up in the duke’s territory. Claude chattered a bit with the friendlier students, but the tense atmosphere had him acting more subdued than usual.

He could play the part of the fool to try to lighten the mood, but something told him this wouldn’t be appreciated. The Blue Lions weren’t all as sociable as the Golden Deer. Byleth didn’t natter on and quiz his students like Hanneman did. Dimitri as house leader set a more somber tone than Lorenz, especially since this mission they had been assigned started as dire as the other had ended. All in all, Claude found himself with a lot of time to observe the people around him.

They were all very earnest. Everyone he’d met from the Officer’s Academy had been so far, even the ones who pretended not to be, like Hilda. They all wanted to make the world a better place in their own ways, and it made Claude want so badly to tell them that the world was far bigger than they could imagine. He wanted them to have bigger dreams because such driven people could accomplish so many things if they only _knew_ how many opportunities were out there.

Ah, if only Fódlan didn’t force its people into ignorance…

Only one person was difficult to get a read on, though he’d been trying for the better part of the week. Sylvain Jose Gautier was many things. He was one of the last members of the Blue Lions that Claude had the dubious pleasure to meet, though even before that day he had heard the rumors.

It wasn’t just Ingrid’s passing comment about Sylvain being out chasing skirts, either. In the monastery’s marketplace, he had previously caught snatches of conversation from ladies lamenting what a terrible flirt the Lord Gautier was. It was one of those things that _everyone_ knew regardless of social standing. The servants knew as well as the nobles that the sun rose in the east, the sky was blue, and Lord Gautier was a no good philanderer.

Oh, he was handsome, no doubt. He was well-built and his features were fine. He had money, land, a title, a crest… He was witty and jovial, quick with a smile and with a helping hand, well read and well bred. And still all the women said only the most foolish could think they’d be “the one” to change his ways. They said he was incapable of love. Sylvain of House Gautier was a dead end unless all one wanted in life was to bear a nobleman’s bastard.

There was something deeply unsettled in the heart of a man like Sylvain. Men who drowned themselves in pleasure, whether it be wine or women, were always running from something. Sylvain, Claude was pretty sure, was running from himself.

It was the little details that cemented the idea in his mind. Sylvain wore expensive cologne imported from a renowned boutique in Derdriu. His favorite tea was bergamot. Fancy! And _Empire_. If his armor were only a little more colorful, something bright and with frivolous accents rather than intimidating Faerghus black, he could be mistaken for a fancy southern dandy like Lorenz or that son of the Empire’s Prime Minister.

At first Claude thought perhaps it was just that he was a rural lord trying to show off to his big-city peers, trying to prove that he could also be cultured even way out in the frontier. But there was a sharpness in his eyes and a hidden cruelty in his smile whenever he cut off training with Claude to go bed a woman. He made the motions of being a happy lech, but it didn’t seep all the way through. And whenever crests were mentioned, even in passing, his shoulders would tense.

Of course crests were a big deal. They were a clear mark of power, of exceptionalism in some way. There weren’t any crests in Almyra, but there were other similar things. There were said to be nature deities and elemental spirits that could bless a child at birth. A colorful or oddly shaped birthmark might be seen as divine favor. If blessed by fire spirits, perhaps the child would become an exceptional blacksmith, or perhaps it meant they were destined to tend the holy fires as a temple priest. A mark never meant one’s path was set in stone. It was merely a guide.

It was in this way that Claude’s crest had been treated as a visible manifestation of his blessing from the moon, which governed healing, knowledge, and mental harmony. Fortune tellers had said at his birth that he was destined to do the moon’s work on earth, but they never dared dictate how he might do it. Indeed, unlike many others who had the moon’s favor, he showed no aptitude for healing magic.

But where the Almyran concept of divine favor could take many forms, in Fódlan crests were the only way Seiros’ goddess marked her chosen ones, and half her “gifts” had no utility outside of battle. Combined with noble duties, it could create an oppressive fate that not everyone took to equally well. Claude could hardly blame anyone from running from that when he had run farther for less. These were the sorts of thoughts that occupied him as they traveled.

They headed northeast from Garreg Mach along the Red Hills that separated Faerghus from Leicester. The Red Hills weren’t very red, at least not at this juncture, but they were named so for starting at the Red Canyon on the south end and ending at the lava-covered Valley of Torment at the north. It was a route that Claude had taken a few times, though always on the Leicester side of the hills.

Professor Byleth and Duke Fraldarius led them on a fast clip past the fertile plains of Charon and across the river to Galatea lands where the farms and settlements they passed grew steadily more sparse and worse for wear. They stopped for the night at a small town just outside central Galatea, far enough from the Fraldarius border that the bandits’ scouts wouldn’t notice any movement even if they had fliers patrolling. Ingrid, from her pegasus, looked off into the distance where the provincial capitol, and perhaps her home, could be seen.

The town was poor, and the inn was barely holding on to business. The harvest had been poor in Galatea in recent years, and this year looked to be the same. Out of pity, the students and soldiers paid full price for watered down ale and wine, though no one touched the stew that resembled dishwater. The commanding officers took shared rooms, while their too-few troops set up tents and bedrolls outside in what once might have been a nice lawn.

When the innkeepers saw Duke Fraldarius, they wailed and groveled and bowed so low their heads almost touched their knees. They repeatedly apologized for the state of things while the duke insisted it was no bother. Felix’s scowl grew so terrifying that he could’ve made them cry if Sylvain and Ingrid didn’t drag him off before their hosts could glance his way. Dimitri slipped behind Dedue and tried to unclip his cape before he was recognized.

Claude didn’t stick around to see how that ended up. He wandered outside to check on how Precious was faring and found that she had refused to enter the stables.

“Hey, you at least get to have a roof over your head. Not going in?”

Precious shot a look of disdain at the ramshackle stables, then snorted and turned her back to it. She laid down and curled into a scaly donut outside of it. The tip of her tail rhythmically swished and thumped the ground by her nose.

“Spoiled girl…”

She merely chuffed and rearranged her wings to make room for him to snuggle against her warm belly. He crawled into the nest of her limbs. Sleep came quickly for her, but Claude laid awake gazing at the stars for some time after, turning thoughts around in his mind until his eyelids grew too heavy to hold open.

Something settled around his shoulders.

Claude jerked his arm up in an instant, dagger lashing out before his eyes even snapped open. The figure who had been standing above him stepped back with its palms held out, and that was the first thing Claude saw. He recognized those black gauntlets.

“Dimitri? What--?” He looked down and saw the folds of a well-worn blanket pooled over his thighs. Dimitri must have set it over him, but why?

“Apologies,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

They had been speaking softly, and a quick glance around the perimeter showed no signs of activity. It must have been a late hour, for the inn and the entire camp were silent. There wasn’t a single light except for the full moon.

Claude tucked his dagger back into the hidden sheath at his waistband. “Well, I’m awake now, if that was your goal. Did you need me for something?”

“It’s nothing,” Dimitri said too quickly. And then, a moment later, he explained. “I have… nightmares. They’re always worse before a battle. I didn’t wish to disturb anyone, so I thought I would… I don’t know, patrol, perhaps. I doubt I’ll be getting any more sleep tonight, and you looked like you could use the blanket more than me.”

Claude covered his mouth to stifle a yawn. “It wouldn’t do for a prince to be wandering around the woods at night all by himself, either.”

Upon hearing this, Dimitri’s expression grew into something that could pass for insulted. “You misunderstand the role of Faerghan nobility. We must always be the protectors, not the protected. There is no greater duty for a prince than to shield his people. If that means taking the first blow, so be it.”

“Uh huh. Sure. You’ll definitely be ready to take all the blows for your people with those hideous bags under your eyes.”

Dimitri chose not to respond. He turned around and took a step forward, like he really was going to patrol for however many hours it was until dawn, and Claude was content to let him go if he was really going to be such a stubborn ass about it. But as he went to take a second step, Precious’ tail whipped around to smack him in the shins.

She ignored his half-hearted protests to let him pass. The sleepy wyvern nudged him with her snout and wings, with gentle nips and whaps of her tail, until Dimitri was forced to sit down next to Claude. The traitor lizard was supposed to wake Claude before anyone could get in close, but because it was _Dimitri_ she just didn’t care. And now she wanted to cuddle him, great. Fighting with her wouldn’t do any good, either.

Claude patted her warm, soft belly. It brought forth memories of sitting with another wyvern under another sky, a sacred sort of ritual that he’d never been brave enough to share, but… He laid back down and turned over on his side, pulling the blanket up, but lifting a corner for Dimitri. His eyes were closed and he was facing away as he said, “Wyverns make great pillows. You should try it.”

Eventually, Dimitri realized Precious was going to get her way no matter what. He took only the smallest corner of the blanket and laid down facing away from Claude.

“Tomorrow’s battle…” Dimitri’s voice trailed off.

“Yeah?”

“How much do you know about who we’ll be facing?”

“A bandit? Byleth told me he stole House Gautier’s relic, so that’s why Sylvain’s taking the lead.”

Dimitri was silent for a long time after. Claude almost thought he’d fallen asleep until his voice rumbled forth once more, softer and lower than he’d ever heard before. “Please watch over him. It’s his brother.”

And suddenly so many pieces slotted into place.

They fell back asleep this way, laying as far apart as possible while sharing a blanket and being snuggled together by a wyvern.

In the early morning it was Annette who stumbled upon them as she went to get water from the well. She stifled her squeak, but it was enough to wake Precious, who licked Claude’s cheek to wake him. It was just in time for the show, too.

Dimitri’s face was beet red, but his expression was utterly serious. He answered Annette’s unspoken question in a very dignified and princely manner: “Good morning. I’ve recently discovered that wyverns make great pillows.”

Immediately after, Precious craned her head over to give him a big wet good morning lick that made all his hair stand straight up.

Claude tried to hold in his snickering all the way to the washroom, where it burst out into full laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri’s type, revised:  
\- <s>impudent</s> informal with him  
\- <s>ok with weed eating</s>  
\- so pretty~  
\- sharp mind, sharp tongue, squishy insides  
\- can appreciate a finely crafted weapon (even better if they can use it!)
> 
> This chapter was getting too long and disjointed, so I cut it in half. I feel like I’m getting too wordy… Halp~ T^T


	14. Sons of the Frontier (2/2)

The skies darkened with the threat of rain as their troops marched to Conand Tower. All morning, they had been seeing destroyed villages – not merely pillaged, but completely razed to the ground. It was Miklan’s work, no doubt. Sylvain’s face turned more and more grim with each ruined house they passed.

No one even tried to give a pep talk – Lord Rodrigue had parted ways with them at the Fraldarius border, continuing north to his home where he was needed. He took with him his small escort, leaving Sir Gilbert the only seasoned knight left in their company. And Gilbert was not a cheerful man, not in the slightest. They could draw his portrait next to the word “stern” in the dictionary, and even the illiterate would understand.

Claude tried not to think of the fates that might have befallen the villagers and instead focused on scouting. It was strange. The bandits _had_ to be camped at the tower, but there was no movement. Were they all huddled inside to wait out the coming storm?

He swooped lower to report to Sylvain. “There’s nothing. Either they’re all out raiding somewhere else, or they’re preparing an ambush. It would be safest to use siege tactics here, surround them with traps, maybe smoke them out after the storm passes. Want me to carry a message to the others?”

“Not yet. He’s in there, and we’re not waiting. Check again.”

“You _want_ us to walk into an ambush? How can that possibly be a good idea?”

Sylvain didn’t waver in his decision. “You don’t know Miklan like I do,” he said, smiling in a way that did nothing to hide his anger. “We’re stronger in every way than whatever band of petty thieves he’s managed to cobble together. We can _handle_ an ambush without casualties, and it’ll lull Miklan into a sense of complacency. His pride and sense of entitlement have always been his undoing.”

The conditions were _perfect _for a siege, which, while more time-consuming, would almost guarantee no casualties on their side. Sylvain might very well be correct that their forces overpowered Miklan’s, but they had no proof of it either way. It wasn’t that Claude was against taking risks, and indeed he’d been chastised in the past for making too many risky plays based on intuition alone. It was just that he preferred to take big risks only if there were big gains to be had. It was frustrating not being able to make tactical decisions and have them be obeyed.

Claude had no choice but to do as Sylvain said, and it _grated_. When he had been subordinate to Hilda, he’d felt that her tactical choices weren’t polished, but she hadn’t been leading the entire army into a reckless charge. She also wasn’t so confident in her strategies. Sylvain was the foremost tactical mind of the Lions, and he was used to getting his way when he presented a plan. There was no way a nobody like Claude could sway him, especially when he seemed set on dueling his brother to the death. Miklan was baiting Sylvain as much as Sylvain was baiting Miklan, but pointing out that he was emotionally compromised would no doubt backfire.

Claude grit his teeth in order not to say anything he couldn’t take back. He pulled his mount back up, but he didn’t have to stealth close to the tower to see a familiar telltale glint flying out of one of the arrow slits on the top floor.

“Ingrid!” he called.

Her pegasus zipped out of the way to avoid the shot. She’d probably gone closer to the tower when she saw Claude descend. He signaled to her that they were heading in, and stayed up only long enough to see her flying lower as she returned to report to the main force.

“What happened?” Sylvain asked.

“She’s fine, but they have archers on the tower. We’ve been spotted.”

“Well… shields up, then.”

They’d brought cavalry and fliers in anticipation of an outdoors battle. Now all their mounts would be useless if they were charging _into_ the fortress. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled in the distance. The sky opened up in a heavy downpour as they dismounted at the treeline, then charged through the small field to the base of the tower with shields held above their heads.

And yet, no archers fired.

Were they too close for the archers to get a good shot from so high up? Possible, but there were arrow slits lower on the tower as well. If Claude were commander of the bandits, he would position some of his forces down there, too. No, it all screamed of mind games. Claude had never met Miklan or even heard of him before this mission, but he was already starting to get a sense that they were up against a real asshole. He didn’t like it one bit.

Behind them, the others came charging through the clearing. They surrounded the entrance and found it blocked by a heavy wooden door. Better than the iron gates that were originally part of the structure – long since rusted off their hinges – but still an impediment.

Sylvain was already examining it, moving his fingers across the wood when the others arrived. “The wood’s rotted in some places. Must’ve nailed this together from whatever scraps they had. Bet it’s barred on the other side, though two or three love taps from a small battering ram ought to take care of that.”

Claude glanced to Professor Byleth. “Did anyone bring the battering ram from the convoy?”

Before the professor could respond, Dimitri stepped forth. “No need for that,” he said. “Where do you think the wood is weakest?”

“About here, feels like.” Sylvain pressed at an area where two different wood grains met. It was likely where two different doors had been nailed together to create this one.

Dimitri nodded. “Stand aside.”

Did he have an explosive? Some clever magical device?

Dimitri pulled back his fist and _punched through the door._

“Hoooooly—”

Then he reached through, quite casually, and lifted the bar on the other side. The door swung open.

“Did you see what I just saw? What _did_ I just see?” Claude looked around, but nobody else was surprised. It was a matter of fact thing for them, that Dimitri had the strength of a rampaging bear. An everyday occurrence that their sweet honorable prince could shatter bones with a single punch and not even break a sweat.

“A glimpse of the boar’s true nature,” Felix said with a sneer.

That was definitely something to unpack at a later time. For now, he ran to catch up with Sylvain, who had already gone in.

The lower levels of the tower seemed empty, from what little they saw. Sylvain took the stairs two at a time in his rush to get to the top, and Claude took his place right behind with his bow at the ready. The staircases were wide enough to fight on without being jammed in single file, but it was still difficult terrain, and it would be hard to get a good shot with Sylvain not only being in front of him, but also above. It would suck to get ambushed… here…

“Fuck. They’re gonna trap us on these stairs, aren’t they?”

“Now you get it,” Sylvain said.

Sure enough, two rough-looking men chose that moment to leap at them from behind a pillar. Sylvain drove his lance through the first one’s throat before he could complete his axe swing. Claude shot the other in the shoulder, causing him to drop his weapon with a pained cry. Merciless, Sylvain speared him through the back as he was bent over.

But there were more coming, and then sounds of battle from behind as well. Some enemies must have been hiding in the rooms they rushed past, waiting to attack the rear where the unarmored healers and long-distance units would be.

The best move now would be… to fall back, meet up with the others. Form a strong defensive wall on both sides, with archers and mages in the middle. Slowly and steadily they could march through anything if they stayed together.

Without checking to see if Claude followed, Sylvain went on ahead.

“Sylvain, hold on! We need to regroup!”

Of course the plea fell on deaf ears, and now there was no strategy to their formation at all. Sylvain just kept charging straight ahead, leaving the main force behind. For a split second, Claude considered staying back. They couldn’t blame him for the reckless behavior of his commander, and they certainly couldn’t prove that he hadn’t just lost sight of Sylvain in the chaos.

But then Claude cursed under his breath and dodged past the attackers in his way. “Damn it, I’m getting soft…” He slung his bow onto his back, swapping it out for the sword Professor Byleth had shoved at him after the practice match with Felix. Damn enclosed spaces! “Ugh. And I _hate _melee! I’m charging you extra for melee, you hear that, Sylvain?!”

There was no response, though it wasn’t like he was expecting one. Claude ducked and weaved past the bandits, leaving them for the allies trying to catch up. Sylvain had done much the same until he came to the center of the top floor where Miklan was standing.

“Hmph! Hurry up and die already. If not for you... If it hadn't been for you…”

“Shut up! I'm so tired of hearing that. You've always blamed me for something that isn't my fault.”

The two brothers faced off in their fated duel, just as they wanted it. Claude only caught the tail end of their conversation before their lances clashed, but the resentment in those words from both sides was almost palpable. It filled the air, thick and sour and cloying from years of fear and rage so strong that it must have once been something like love.

Most of Miklan’s men were reluctant to get in their boss’ way, but Claude was there to challenge those who would try anything. From the corner of his eye, he could see the brothers were evenly matched. Sylvain was younger and stronger; he’d been living and training in much better conditions, and it showed in his performance. But Miklan had the Lance of Ruin, a grotesque pulsating thing that had power roiling off it in waves.

Finally the others caught up. They dispatched the surrounding thieves easily. It looked like the battle would end soon.

Lightning flashed ominously outside, and in the next moment Miklan was screaming, screaming, SCREAMING! Sylvain hadn’t even struck him; he’d staggered back in shock. Claude stared in horror as otherworldly black tendrils flowed from the Lance of Ruin and into Miklan’s body.

Miklan began to bulge and grow. The timbre of his screams changed, deepened, turned into a roar. Monstrous flesh burst forth and completely absorbed the lance until both man and weapon were one beast. One beast, black as shadow, with daggers for teeth and spikes on its back that could impale an armored knight in a single blow… And its eyes, glowing as red as the stone in the lance…

Was this what they meant when they said those without crests couldn’t use the Heroes’ Relics? Were they just… _consumed_ by whatever hungering power was in those objects? _Evil_, was Claude’s first thought. _Evil forces created those relics._

Shouts from Dimitri and the professor snapped him out of his frozen state. They directed the front line fighters to surround the beast and kept its snapping jaws at bay with lances and axes and the professor’s Sword of the Creator. The way it glowed and the snap of its extension was nothing short of fearsome, though seeing it up close now the segments looked like bone, like a spine.

Claude’s body moved on its own while his mind raced. He sheathed his sword and brought out his bow again, taking up a position in the outer ring with Ashe, Mercedes, and Annette. He fired arrow after arrow into the beast, aiming for the eyes and the gaps in its armored hide. Their formation held, and they whittled away at the thing until finally it slumped to the ground, too injured to stand.

“Let me do it,” Sylvain said.

The beast stared at him with its eerie red eyes, the glow somewhat dulled now. It let out a weak, pained roar. Sylvain drove his lance through its temple with a sickening splurch, and then its head lolled.

The glow completely faded.

All they could hear were their own heavy breaths, the constant hiss of heavy rain, and the low rumble of thunder in the distance.

Whatever magic made up the body of the beast dissipated until there was nothing left but Miklan and the Lance of Ruin.

“…my brother…”

* * *

The downpour was too strong for them to leave the tower as fast as they would have liked. They took the lance and brought it down to the ground floor where no fighting had occurred. The convoy and mounts that they’d left at the edge of the woods were brought in one by one. Dedue chopped apart the fallen door for kindling, and Mercedes lit the fire with a spark of magic.

As soon as they were drying by the fire, Precious curled around Claude, sniffing and chuffing all over him to check if her stupid human was injured.

“Ah, get off, I’m fine!” He pushed her off, which earned him a displeased lizard-glare. If she were human, he would call it a pout.

Precious ambled off, but it wasn’t to lay down. Before Claude could realize it and stop her, she’d snaked her way to Dimitri and begun sniffing all over him. It must have been ticklish, with how Dimitri giggled and squirmed. She paused at a tear in his uniform by the ribs. The fabric around the area was spotted with blood, but the skin inside was pink with newly formed scar tissue.

“It’s only a small cut,” he said. “See? Already healed.”

Still, she crooned and nuzzled him before moving on.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the order in which she approached everyone. Professor Byleth got two sniffs and a cheek lick, which he bore with nary a change in his placid expression. Sir Gilbert sitting nearby held up a hand to block her snout and said, “No thank you”. For once, she actually obeyed.

Ashe and Dedue received many sniffs, especially around some of their pockets. It turned out to be spices that they’d brought along to liven up campfire meals. Ashe made the mistake of opening a pouch for her inspection. Precious sneezed, covering his chest with wyvern snot. She gave him an apology lick, which only resulted in more fluids to wipe off, though he took it all with good humor.

When she moved on to Mercedes and Annette, the girls proactively reached out to give her chin scritches. “I’ve read that wyverns like to be scratched right here!” Annette said. “And here!” She went for the area behind the horns. Mercedes followed her friend’s lead, and Precious rumbled in happiness, eyes closing.

“Here, Precious,” Ingrid called, holding out her hand. “Can I scritch too?”

The wyvern snorted and shook her head, backing up a bit.

“W-what? Why?”

“You smell like pegasus,” Claude explained.

“And why’s that a problem?”

“Pegasi are _delicious_. If she starts licking you, it’ll be a long time before she stops.”

“I see…”

Ingrid tried not to appear upset, but her true feelings still shone through. Claude sighed. “One lick,” he said to Precious. “_One_.”

Immediately, the wyvern was vibrating with excitement. She extended her tongue and give Ingrid a very long, very thorough lick along the full length of her arm that sent the girl into a giggling fit.

At last she came upon Felix and Sylvain, who had been conversing in low, hushed tones.

“No,” Felix said. He stared down the lizard.

The lizard stared back. She took a step forward.

“Stay,” he said.

She stopped walking. Instead, her tongue poked out and stretched toward him. Felix’s brow furrowed and his nose scrunched into a sour expression. “What are you doing? Stop that.”

The tongue streeeetched, and streeeeeeeeetched until, trembling with effort, the very tip of it poked his cheek in a tiny kitten lick.

Only then was she satisfied.

Sylvain… Sylvain had taken the most injuries in the battle. Of course he had, with the way he’d charged through without care for anything but taking down Miklan. Then there had been the duel with the bandit boss himself, and the fight against the beast he became. Sylvain had been at the forefront of everything.

Precious sat with him, putting her head on his lap and gazing up with big sorrowful eyes, waiting for pats and praise.

“Is she always this way?” Sylvain asked.

“Nah, it’s never been this bad before. Wyverns tend to think their riders belong to them, though in a group like this a dominant wyvern might decide they were all hers to care for. ‘The friend of my human is also my human,’ or something like that. Precious is the furthest thing from dominant, but there aren’t any other wyverns here, so all the humans belong to her now. Congrats, you’ve been adopted.”

Sylvain waggled his eyebrows. “Ladies can’t resist me.”

Afternoon gave way to evening before the rains even slowed. The thunderstorm at least had passed, but even if they left now, they would be riding in the rain and through mud all the way to the nearest intact town. The chances of illness or injury were too high to risk it.

“I really hope the rain stops,” Annette said. “I don’t care if we march through the night, I don’t want to camp here knowing there are bodies upstairs.”

Professor Byleth nodded. “If it stops,” he promised.

In the aftermath of a battle, the slain had to be given at least the respect of a proper burial. The local townspeople were usually tasked with digging the graves if the knights had other things to attend to, as was the case this time. It was good that the students of the Officer’s Academy had to participate in gravedigging once in a while, though. A sobering experience for the future leaders of the world. Perhaps they would be less likely to start battles when they were in charge, if they remembered what happened after their enemies were slain. (It was certainly a practice the nobles in Almyra could stand to adopt…)

The mention of bodies made Sylvain sink back into brooding.

The professor came over and put a hand on Sylvain’s shoulder. His voice was soft and calm as always. “Do you want to bury him?”

“He’s not… he _wasn’t_ a Gautier anymore. He wasn’t my brother, just another bandit and a sadistic one at that. You saw what he did to the villages, what he…”

“I saw. It’s still all right to mourn.”

Sylvain’s next words came out haltingly, unsure. “Could I burn him, then? Make a funeral pyre, I mean. It’s… tradition. Up north.”

Byleth nodded once more, but then added, “Not in this weather. You could take his body back home if you wanted, and return the relic while you’re at it.”

Sir Gilbert was not pleased with this suggestion. “Professor, the Lance of Ruin is dangerous and highly sought after, as we’ve just witnessed. It would be safest to bring it back to Garreg Mach. The archbishop will arrange an escort to return it to Margrave Gautier when our troops have returned.”

“But it doesn’t belong to the Church. It belongs to House Gautier; it’s safest with Sylvain. He’s the only one who can use it.”

“And who would escort him? It’s not that I don’t trust young Sylvain, but it’s much too dangerous to go alone.”

“Claude,” the professor said.

“Me?” Claude pointed to himself.

“You. Overtime rate.”

Claude shrugged. “Sure. I mean, we’d be safe enough in the skies.”

“…Yes, of course.” Gilbert was not pleased, but he did not protest further.

Byleth smiled. It was a tiny thing, but genuine.

The rains finally let up later in the evening. The clouds parted and the moon shone bright enough for them to travel. Claude and Sylvain said their awkward goodbyes to the rest of the Blue Lions, who headed south.

Miklan was stripped of his armor, wrapped in oilcloth and placed in a weapons crate turned makeshift casket. They tied the crate to Precious, who would be struggling with the weight of three men.

It was nearly dawn when they arrived at the Fraldarius keep. The sudden arrival caused a bit of a ruckus and woke the duke at a terrible hour, yet Duke Fraldarius was kind enough to let them stay and rest for a day and a night. He even lent them one of his draft wyverns to take the burden off Precious.

The duke was a busy man, but he still took the time to pull Sylvain aside and speak to him about the events that had occurred. Claude was not privy to their conversations, and honestly he didn’t want to be when the gloom around them was so thick. He instead took the time to be by himself for a while and think on the things he had learned.

There was Dimitri’s inhuman strength, likely related to his crest. There was Felix’s hostility toward his prince and even his own father – also crest-related? And there was Sylvain’s family trauma – definitely crest-related. So many mysteries!

It was dawn of the second day when they set off again. This time Claude and most of their cargo were on the borrowed draft wyvern. He let Sylvain ride Precious because he was less skilled with wyverns, and her smaller size made her easier as a beginner’s mount.

The Itha Plains, ancestral home of House Itha, lay between Fraldarius and Gautier. According to the maps and histories Claude had read, House Itha had largely been absorbed into neighboring House Blaiddyd through frequent intermarriage. The title of Duke of Itha was now commonly passed to members of House Blaiddyd who had been cut from the royal line of succession, like the current regent.

There were many other details about politics and bloodlines, but none of the books had mentioned the Itha Plains being a sea of yellow flowers as far as the eye could see. It was breathtaking to fly over them, to be caught between the blue sky and yellow waves.

Sylvain had barely spoken to Claude since they left the tower, but he leaned over now when he saw Claude’s eyes go wide at the sight. “Never seen anything like it, huh. I’ve never flown across the plains before, either.”

“It’s beautiful…”

“Imagine riding through on horseback, it’s amazing.”

“Yeah, must be,” Claude said with a smile. “What are these flowers, do you know? Are they wild?”

Sylvain shrugged. “Maybe they’ve gone wild now, but they were planted here, a long time ago. It’s woad, one of Faerghus’ biggest exports.”

“Ah, I think I’ve heard of it. So the source of the famous ‘Faerghus blue’ dye is a yellow flower, huh.”

There was a tension in the ensuing silence that lasted all the way until they reached the Black Fort at the very northern reaches of Faerghus, the home of House Gautier. It was a newer fortress, constructed only a few decades ago after the last great campaign against Sreng had been won. Rather than place it in a central part of Gautier lands, it sat on a hill at the new border from which the margrave could see for miles into Sreng. And true to its name, its walls were built of dark gray stone that would appear almost pure black in a storm.

All the structures in the surrounding town were built in the same style. Everything was stark, austere, designed to intimidate. Sylvain in his jet black armor fit right in with the soldiers patrolling the streets. There was black and dark gray armor everywhere, with the only bit of color being sashes dyed in various shades of Faerghus blue tied around the waists of higher ranking officers.

The guards at the gate hailed Sylvain when he landed. Claude touched down a moment later and swung down. He made to take the straps off the casket, but was stopped.

“Leave it,” Sylvain said. “We won’t be here long.”

“Uh, didn’t you bring the body back for your parents?”

“For my mother. My father won’t want to see him. He cares only for the lance.”

They were let into the fort and strode quickly through the chilly halls. Sylvain knocked once he came to the margrave’s quarters. A deep voice called out, “Come in.”

The office was as gloomy as the rest of the northern stronghold. Some effort had been made to put in the appropriate furnishings for receiving guests – couch, rug, decorative lamps and the like, but they were stiffly placed and had seen little use. There was, however, one spot of color that drew Claude’s attention. A family portrait on the wall… Claude stood behind Sylvain, head lowered demurely as a good commoner would, but his eyes kept flitting to the portrait as Sylvain spoke with the margrave.

When Margrave Gautier looked up from behind his desk, his eyes showed only the barest hint of surprise. He was a battle-hardened man with the same red hair as his sons, though it had begun to gray at the temples. The dour expression, however, resembled Miklan much more than Sylvain.

“I wasn’t expecting you to come in person,” he said to his son.

Wordlessly, Sylvain presented the wrapped Lance of Ruin.

“It’s done, then?”

“It’s done,” Sylvain confirmed. “By my own hand.”

“Good.”

Sylvain struggled with himself for a moment before he decided to speak once more. “Father, something… _happened_ to Miklan when he tried to use the lance. He…”

“Hmph. That foolish boy… He should have known better than to try it without a crest.”

“He seemed surprised, like he didn’t know the true consequences. _I _didn’t know them. All our lives we’ve just been told that it’s impossible to bring out the relic’s true power, not that it would… would turn him into a beast of nightmares!”

“It is the will of the Goddess,” the margrave said, shutting down any further dissent. “You will keep quiet about this, lest it cause a panic among the populace. Most are too weak-minded to understand that the Goddess must punish blasphemers if she is to protect the virtuous. You too, servant boy, you’ll keep this to yourself.”

“Yessir,” Claude said with a deferential bow.

After that, Margrave Gautier didn’t ask how his son was faring in school or invite him to rest at home. He merely reminded Sylvain of his duty and sent them on their way.

They went to the kitchens to stock up on supplies for the return, Sylvain seething all the while.

Claude kept thinking back to that portrait. The margrave’s younger self was still stern, but his lips had curled in a small smile. At his side there had been a lovely noblewoman holding a sleeping babe in her arms. The portrait was strangely cropped on that side, with shadows and bits of cloth that pointed at there once being another figure. Miklan, Claude guessed, who had been erased from even the portraits when he was disowned, like the burned off crestless branches of the genealogies recorded in the School of Sorcery.

* * *

Lady Gautier did not live in the fortress with her husband. This wasn’t too strange for noble spouses, especially if theirs had been an arranged marriage. After raising two sons to adulthood, her “contract” with the lord would be finished.

What was strange was that they flew deep into the wilderness to find her, and when they landed there was not a chateau or estate anywhere to be seen. Dark forest gave way to a great green plain. There were farms here, and simple huts built in a style Claude hadn’t seen before.

When they dismounted, Sylvain paused, seemingly reluctant to bring Claude into the settlement. Then he shook his head and said, “Don’t say anything that’ll get yourself killed.”

The casket couldn’t be carried by one man alone, after all… He really had no choice but to accept Claude’s help, not that Claude would ever be content to stay out of such a tantalizing mystery.

The farmers in their fields stared, and people peered out of their huts as they passed. Guards clad in leather and bronze armor came up and spoke to Sylvain in an accent so heavy Claude could barely make out any words.

But Sylvain replied easily. “I come to return Lady Litha’s son, who was slain in battle.”

The conversation carried on this way, spoken in one language and replied to in another. Eventually, the leaders of the village were sent for. Elders came out in ceremonial robes. They directed the building of a funeral pyre in the circle of stone statues that was their burial site. Miklan was laid down upon it, surrounded by statues and offerings to heathen gods, and they painted patterns onto his skin in swirls of Faerghus blue – a paste made of the dye that grew in the fields all around them.

And finally their chieftain appeared, the identity of which was less of a surprise than it should have been. Litha, Lady Gautier, strode up to the pyre with a torch in one hand and lance in the other. Her face was the same, but the rest of her looked nothing like the portrait that hung in her husband’s office.

She was naked and her skin painted in the same blue stripes and swirls. The only covering she had was her own hair, hanging loose down to the thigh, and thick bands of gold worn around her arms and neck. The only emotion she allowed herself to show was to caress the cheek of her eldest son before she lit the pyre.

Miklan was sent off to the afterlife accompanied by flames reaching for the sky and the ululating cries of his kinsmen.

And through it all, Sylvain watched with dry eyes. Not once did he speak the language of Sreng or even approach his mother, though he nodded to her, and she nodded back.

When he turned to leave, Claude followed.

“So, are we… just not gonna talk about all of that?”

“I brought you along for the wyvern and the extra hand, not to sate anyone’s curiosity about the _barbarians_ of the north.”

“Hey, I never called them that! That word never left _my _mouth.”

Still, Sylvain’s lips remained in a stern line. “Leave them alone. They’ve suffered enough.”

The ugly truth of it was that they had suffered and were still suffering, and their own children were the cause. Faerghus and Sreng had been fighting for this strip of land for centuries, and it must have changed hands multiple times. The lords changed, but the people didn’t.

After Faerghus’ latest successful push to claim the land, Margrave Gautier thought it a good idea to marry a woman of Sreng to cement his rule. Yet he would still force his sons to fight against his wife’s people.

And for her, for Litha, a chieftain of the Sreng, it was easy to understand why she might have accepted his proposal. The northern tribes were a hardy people who fought with each other as much as they fought with the Fódlish. They were a warrior culture, and when the young Lord Gautier marched across the Itha Plains with his crest flashing and the Lance of Ruin in hand, they would have seen him coming and thought, “Yes, that is strength.”

Perhaps Lady Gautier didn’t care that her husband and sons continued to war with those _other_ tribes of Sreng across the mountains, but Faerghus sought to erase all of them and destroy its own “shameful” mixed history along the way. They might turn a blind eye to Lady Gautier’s heathen background for the time being, but her sons shunned her ways because they could not survive otherwise in the world around them. Her people would still die, choked out by the bigotry slowly creeping up from the south.

Sylvain could not bear to speak the language of Sreng, which he obviously knew. He could not admit to himself that he had as much of Sreng as he had of Fódlan inside him, or he might go mad. He might become _Claude_. It really was unnerving how similar they were, warped mirrors held against each other.

_You've always blamed me for something that isn't my fault._

“I get it. I know what it’s like.”

“Do you really?” Sylvain narrowed his eyes.

“Hey, I grew up by the border too – the eastern border. Everyone’s always so obsessed with strength and being battle-ready. They’re always so afraid an invasion will happen at any moment that they’ll put a weapon in a child’s hand as soon as they’re able to walk. Merchants, orphans, farmers… everyone fights.”

“Guess the stories of the Gonerils’ killer training methods are true, huh.”

“You don’t know the half of it. The Almyrans see what the Gonerils are doing and freak out and get harsher on training their kids. And then the Gonerils see _that_ and escalate their training even more, and then the Almyrans escalate again… The soldiers get younger and more hateful every year. It never ends, and the people who suffer the most are the kids on either side, having their childhoods stripped away by the threat of war. I want to end that, even if it’s an impossible dream…

But anyway, I… I know what it’s like to be bullied and hated for something you have no control over. Where I’m from, you know, with strength being everything, you can imagine that they don’t take kindly to the weak. I was a runt as a kid. I got picked on a lot.”

“You’re still a runt.”

“Ha ha.”

“You got picked on, but did they ever try to kill you? Did they break your bones? Push you down stairs? Push you into an empty well and leave you there for days?” Sylvain said it all in such a bland way that they must have happened. “And when you went crying to your mother, did she tell you warriors don’t cry? That if you couldn’t fight back, you _deserved_ to die?”

Claude paused, not sure how much he wanted to reveal. “I was never pushed into a well, but the other stuff, yeah. Something like that. Um… to make me stronger, my dad used to tie me to a horse and drag me around behind him as he rode?”

“That’s fucked up.”

“It’s actually not as bad as it sounds, and it worked! …But it’s also why I prefer wyverns.”

That, at least, got a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dimitri: *punches through door*  
Claude: Hoooooly… *has sexual awakening*
> 
> Felix: the boar’s true nature…  
Claude: …is a sexy beast  
Felix: What? No, he’ll devour you!  
Claude: Please devour me… 
> 
> Claude’s type is strong-sweet. This is just canon, yo. Look at the ladies he can marry. Hilda/Leonie/Ingrid/Byleth – STRONK, Lysithea – MAGIC STRONK, Petra (and possibly Shamir) – badass assassins who could kill him in his sleep. Sometimes the sweet side wins out more, like with Marianne/Annette/Flayn, who are the most precious innocent pure beans, waaaay too earnest and slightly naive about the world. And Dimitri is both hideously strong and a precious pure bean, therefore he is 1000% Claude’s type.
> 
> (In another universe, Claude and Sylvain agree that Hilda is the hottest girl at the academy and Sylvain is like, “Lookit her ASSETS” and Claude is like, “Hell yeah! Did you see how she used them to take out all those bandits?” and Sylvain is like, “Da fuq? She defeated bandits with boobs?” and Claude is like, “No, her ASSETS. Her biceps!”)
> 
> Ahem. Anyway, history/culture ramblings ahead…
> 
> According to one of the dev interviews, the creation of Faerghus was mostly influenced by ancient Gaul. I think that would mean its post-Adrestian-conquest version would be like northwestern Europe post-Roman-conquest. The Celtic history has mostly been wiped or assimilated into Roman culture, but there are little pockets of their original culture that hold out, especially in the northern reaches. Usually I envision Sreng as a land of Viking-esque tribes, but here I’m playing with the idea that southern Sreng (now Gautier) was a sort of melting pot/salad bowl area split between the Celtic-ish and Nordic-ish peoples, kind of like the British Isles. They rebuffed the attempted ancient Adrestian (Roman) conquest, only to later fall to the Faerghans (Normans – Romanized Gauls mixed with other northern tribes). 
> 
> Uhhh… if that didn’t make any sense, I’ll lay out my influences more clearly here. Of course, all of the nations are Europe-in-a-blender, but sometimes with more aspects of this and that. I’m not a history expert by any means, just interested in the big picture, culture and causation, that sort of thing. Anyway…
> 
> ancient Adrestia = Roman Empire, but founded by people raised by dragons instead of wolves  
modern Adrestia = Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy nor Roman nor empire, aka the First Reich, aka that one time medieval Germany impersonated Rome to pretend the old empire was still alive (it isn’t, it died when it splintered into the 3 modern nations)  
Faerghus = Gaul, which is ancient France. …But with colder climate lol.  
Sreng/Albinea = other Celtic-ish Viking-ish tribes  
Duscur = Celtic-ish, but also Finland (because I say so, dammit!)  
Leicester = Mediterranean merchant republics (Venice, Genoa, etc.) plus the plains of central/southeastern Europe (Hungary-ish to Turkey-ish)
> 
> I also have the blessings of one (1) Irish person to mangle and destroy Celtic history/legends as much as I want to for this fic, lol.


	15. Interlude: Jasmine

“I’m hovering on the tip of a conspiracy here that could affect the whole continent,” Khalid said. “Call it a hunch, but something tells me that the people targeting Faerghus are no friends of Leicester either, and definitely no friends of… anyone else.” _Almyra_, he didn’t have to say.

Yasmin slipped off the saddle with her newly sharpened knife tucked into her belt. She darted into the woods. Khalid – _Claude_ – had told her to search around the base of the mountain on which Garreg Mach was built. Perhaps there was a secret entrance somewhere, or at least a hidden cavern where some monk from long ago stashed heretical books. Monasteries didn’t get to be hundreds of years old without accumulating secrets.

Claude’s hunches were almost always accurate to an uncanny degree, and this time was no different. It wasn’t hard to find the first entrance after an hour or so. There were markings on certain trees that could have been hunting signs, except they looked too old to be of use for that. Trail markings were usually refreshed every year around well-populated areas like this. It wouldn’t do to have stray students wandering into bear traps, especially the noble ones who might squeal to their influential parents.

It could have been an _abandoned_ hunting trail, except the leaves underfoot were crushed. Someone was still using the path for other reasons. Yasmin followed it until she came to what looked like a cavern cut into the side of the rock. It was mostly hidden by vegetation. When she peered in, there seemed to be _stairs_ going further into the darkness. The trail kept going around, too. And when she followed that, there was another entrance, and another, and another.

This could mean any number of things. Had she stumbled across a series of old individual storage caverns, or dwellings, or burial sites? Was there a series of _connected_ caverns within the mountain under the monastery?

These openings were all around the base of the mountain and along the sides as she followed them up, always hidden unless one was specifically looking for them. The more little holes she came across, the colder it seemed to get. It was mid-morning now, and a warm day at the height of summer, but Yasmin couldn’t shake off the shivers that ran down her spine. She wouldn’t know for sure until she went in, but the thought wouldn’t leave her mind that Garreg Mach was not a mere monastery…

It was an anthill.

Some of the entrances had been blocked by boulders, dirt, or fallen trees. Some had looked collapsed inside. Yasmin finally stopped in front of one, her breathing high and shallow in her chest.

There was a little alcove carved into the rock here. A weathered statuette, no longer than her forearm, had been placed within. It depicted a woman. There were flowers in her hair, and she held a scepter in one hand and a large bloom in the other. The scepter was a symbol of authority; it was something wielded by gods and kings. She must be a goddess or a saint associated with green growing things, which didn’t narrow her identity down much at all. In Fódlan’s religion, all the female figures of worship were associated with this kind of iconography. It could be Saint Seiros whose symbol was a leaf, the maidenly Saint Cethleann whose symbol was a young bud, or even the goddess herself whose flames took the shape of a full and mighty blossom.

Yasmin had seen many statues of these holy figures in the time she had spent in Fódlan. But this one was different. A Fódlish person might not have noticed, but the flowers around the lady weren’t lilies or roses or anything that could be found on this side of the mountains.

And more than that, she’d seen this type of statue before.

Upon seeing it again, memories and emotions flooded unbidden through her mind.

* * *

Yasmin was born in the saddle, or so her mother used to say. It was mid-autumn. They were traveling with the herd across the plains to the winter grazing grounds in the south. There, they would set up their tents within a day’s travel of the Almyran capital, where they could easily trade goat’s milk and fur for tea and flour. Hagmatana, the city was called. In the language of the city people, this meant “the place for gathering”. It was accurate.

Mother, father, and many of her aunts, uncles, and cousins were on horseback, moving along at an easy pace. As they came down into the more populated areas, they began to see other herders heading the same way. These were their neighbors, whom they greeted warmly. Sometimes they were family too – an aunt who left to find a husband, or cousins who split the herd to graze on another side of the plains some generations ago.

They spent their lives on horseback, and it was normal for a woman to ride even while expecting. Yasmin was due to be born shortly after they arrived at the winter campsite, but she was impatient. The cramps came suddenly, and her mother bled all over her poor mare before she could call a halt to their travels.

Yasmin was _so_ impatient that if it weren’t for her father’s quick reflexes, she might have landed in the dirt as her mother tried to dismount.

“I’d been telling you about the flowers in the city that they grow year-round with magic. I think you wanted to see them very badly!” They told that story every autumn as they traveled. She used to get mad about it.

In winter her people stayed in the grazing lands outside of the city and the farms that surrounded it. Sometimes farmers came out to see them and buy their goats. Sometimes they took fresh meat and milk into the city. Usually only their warriors went into the city to trade. It was dangerous there, they said. Everything was so packed together. They couldn’t see thieves hiding in the shadows the way they could see predators stalking the hills and plains. Couldn’t shoot their bows in a crowded marketplace and had to rely on their daggers instead.

But Yasmin begged and begged the year they finally let her have her own practice bow. She’d seen six summers and was a warrior now too. Just as the last summer ended, she’d shot a wolf threatening their herd. Every year they teased her about being born early because she wanted to see the magic flowers in the city, but she never got to see them at all!

When winter came to an end, they usually celebrated the coming of the new year in the south before packing up their tents. Each year they would choose a different family to host, and all the herders would come together to feast and dance and jump over the cleansing fire. That year, however, her father and mother decided to take her into the city.

It wasn’t just because she’d begged. A nobleman, a military general of some sort, had expressed interest in hiring them. He wanted to go to war somewhere, and knew the riders of the plains made great cavalry. Oh, of course he would also buy their goats, and provide them with so many luxuries in return – riches they had never seen before in all their travels, he said.

(He would later murder them when the talks fell through, and her people, assuming her dead alongside them, would ride away quickly. The next year they would change their winter campground to another city somewhere else – she never learned where. Yasmin would be left to wander the streets of Hagmatana for years, slowly forgetting their faces, until the fateful day she was told to kill the sad-eyed prince… But those were memories to relive another day.)

Yasmin was too young to understand much of the details at the time. All she cared for was seeing the new year’s celebrations the way the city people did them. It was her first time seeing the capital, and it was in the throes of the largest celebration of the year. People were everywhere, singing and dancing. Colorful garlands of flowers hung over every doorway. Tulips and hyacinths, which were in season, graced the houses of commoners. Those of higher status decorated with exotic or out-of-season blooms grown by the nature mages of the Lotus Shrine.

In the marketplace, she saw people dressed in all manner of strange clothes. They were entertainers, her parents explained. They came from near and far to dance for the nobles and royals. Hagmatana wasn’t just “the place for gathering” because their people met here in winter. _Everyone_ met here, from all across the Almyran empire and sometimes beyond.

The women and men of one dance troupe in particular caught her eye. They all had strong bodies that leapt and twisted with ease. Their costumes were made of flowing jewel-toned silks with elaborate designs plucked out in gold and silver thread. Their eyes were lined with kohl and their lips painted with red ochre. Strands of sweet-smelling jasmine were woven through their hair, which they streaked green with vegetable dyes.

Within their dance was a tale she’d never heard before, of a star that fell in the west. The star was a seed from which a single pure white flower bloomed, and within the flower was a goddess. Everywhere she stepped, she brought new life. Her blood was the dew that nourished the land. People came from far and wide to worship her. And because she was kind, they were blessed with knowledge and longevity.

But as with all good things, it could not last, for the cycle of the world is split evenly between order and chaos. Soon, evil forces grew jealous of the goddess and her people, who lived in a shining city free of mortal pains. They went to war against her. For many years there was only war. Blood and dark magic soaked the ground and poisoned the land until no crops would grow. The trees and grass withered. The herds had nothing to graze.

The goddess did not want to leave, but her precious children would die if she did not intervene. She used all her power to cleanse the tainted soil, and in so doing, reverted herself into her star-seed form. And so she would wait until the wheel of time came full circle once more, and all that is old would be renewed. And all that is dead would be reborn.

Her people carried her tale across the mountains, across the seas. They waited with their goddess of spring, of flowers, of all green growing things, who now lay dormant as a seed in winter.

When the dance was finished, the crowd cheered and the woman who had played the part of the goddess thanked everyone and bid them come see the dancers perform again at the Lotus Shrine where they were staying. She asked the spectators to spare a few coins if they could. They also had statues of the goddess for sale, to bless their homes with light and life.

Yasmin stared at the little statues for a long time. She stared and stared until her mother tugged her away. The goddess was so beautiful, with jasmine in her hair and a sacred lotus in her hand.

* * *

“You’re right. There are caverns.”

“I knew it!” Claude pumped his fist in victory. “Do you know what’s in them? Any books?”

There he was again, Prince Khalid’s shining eyes peeking through from behind the mask of Claude von Riegan. He could never contain himself around _books_ and used to wander everywhere with at least one tome under his arm at all times. From one end of the Scholars’ District to the other he would go, from the Imperial Library to the House of Stars, a mound of books and scrolls held close, gaze drifting up to the clouds as if he could track the movements of celestial bodies even in broad daylight. If she hadn’t known he was thinking about brewing poisons and calculating orbits, he would have seemed like a silly noble girl dreaming of the day her prince would come.

That was what he’d been like when she first came to know him, though too many of his precious books had taken knives for him since.

Yasmin shook her head. “I didn’t go in, didn’t think I was prepared enough. There were _so many_ tunnels once I learned where to look. Brother, the whole mountain might be hollow.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ll be on a mission with the Golden Deer for a couple of days. You take care while I’m gone, okay?”

He ruffled her hair and she rolled her eyes. Ugh. Such a worrywart! What kind of prince fussed over his _fully trained_ and _very competent_ bodyguard?

* * *

Yasmin said a quick prayer to the goddess statue before she went into the hole in the mountain. This time she was prepared. She had her bow and dagger, a pack full of supplies, and a small mage light to illuminate her way. The mage light was a small lantern powered by a magic crystal. Its blue glow was dimmer than a normal lantern, but the crystal wouldn’t be consumed as quickly as wood or lamp oil.

The path was wide enough for a single person to walk comfortably, but the darkness and loneliness played tricks on the mind. She walked for what seemed like hours without encountering any sign of life.

Eventually, there came a light in the distance. Yasmin quickly turned off her own lamp. She crept up to the exit and saw that this was a small side tunnel that opened up… into an entire underground city.

She held her breath in order not to make a sound. It was like a dream. There were streets. There were dwellings. There were entire districts! Mage lights were set into the rock walls in some places, and torches hung in others. Where she had entered was some sort of residential area populated by crooked, colorful tents. The fabrics were dusty and torn, but still brightly patterned.

There were spiraling stairs that led up, though, and bridges of stone that connected to all the various exits that she’d seen dotting the outside of the mountain. Up and up it went, all the way to the very top. To the monastery.

“It’s not often we see a new face here.”

Yasmin really did gasp then, and her hand flew to the dagger in her belt. When she turned, the sight that greeted her was an elderly man. He had a toothless smile and sightless eyes, and he’d spoken to her in common Almyran.

“Not that I can see!” he said, laughing at his own joke. “But your footsteps! Ah, those! Your walk is not a cadence I have heard before, stranger.”

“I saw the statue outside,” Yasmin mumbled. It seemed the most neutral thing she could say.

“Of course, of course. Most of the Almyrans who find their way into the Abyss choose this entrance with the goddess’ guidance. You sound young. Did you come here on pilgrimage then? All alone at such an age?”

“I am grown enough for it.”

At this, the old man harrumphed. “I’m sure you are, but you shouldn’t have to be! Now come, let’s get you settled in.”

“I’m not staying,” she protested. Still, she let herself be led deeper into the underground settlement.

The old man – Farhan, he introduced himself – set her up at an empty tent. She sat with the few Almyrans for dinner, sharing some of the bread in her pack in exchange for their stew.

Some of them, like Farhan, were followers of the Starseed. They smuggled themselves past the border on pilgrimage, heading ever west until they came to the place they were convinced was the holy land. But, Fódlan’s attitude toward Almyrans being what it was, they were forced to hide underground even though they worshiped the same goddess.

This was the archbishop’s mercy, they said. Lady Rhea could only preach so much tolerance if her people would not open their hearts and minds. She did not want to see any devotees turned away, however, so she shielded them in Abyss. Far better to be hidden than killed.

Others were adventurous traders, not content with merely doing semi-legal business by the docks. Sometimes they were black market smugglers or message runners, too. They connected people to the goods they wanted, regardless of the law.

And then there were the exiles, army deserters who would be killed for their cowardice if they ever set foot back in Almyra. It was possible to find shelter in the border towns, but that was a life full of fear, full of waiting for the day they would be discovered by Goneril soldiers. Life in Abyss was hard, but at least here they could make something of a living for themselves as extra hands for the various operations that ran unseen by the world above.

They told her about life in the underground, about all the types of people who gathered here. They told her about the Wolves and the Mockingbird. And when Farhan turned in for the night, they told her in whispers, “Beware. The Wolves protect us, but they are Rhea’s dogs. If you are seen by them, you are seen by her.”

It would have been suspicious to disappear right after they told her so much, so Yasmin spent the next few days helping out with small chores. She wandered the other districts of the underground city under the guise of mapping out her new home. It started with creeping around the residential areas, then into edges of the black market where she first saw the Wolves in their white uniforms.

They were dressed in a mockery of student uniforms when the oldest was at least in his late twenties. He could have been in his thirties for all she knew. Someone (or possibly several someones) among them must have had a complex.

Near this area there was a _library_, and even though Yasmin’s knowledge of written Fódlish wasn’t the best, she knew she had to try to find information. Banned books! Burned reports! The secrets of Fódlan’s seat of power, tossed into a pit to be guarded by Wolves! This was exactly what Claude had been searching for, but until they could figure out a way to get him down here, it was up to her to dig through the stacks.

And… well. Most of it turned out to be sex things.

Yasmin held up a book from what might have been the hundredth stack of erotica she had dug through in the hours she had been sneaking around the poorly organized library. Once in a while, she’d had to hide in a corner as someone passed through, but for the most part it was quiet. But anyway, this book. This was an illustrated one.

She turned it around to try to make sense of what part was going where. It didn’t make sense, so she tilted it another ninety degrees, cocked her head and squinted.

This was when she felt a hand land on her shoulder.

“Well, well… What have we here? Where have you come from, baby bird? And why are you snooping in the wolves’ den?”

Immediately she froze. This man was dangerous. She had only ever felt this type of killing intent coming from the best, like Mother Gulshan when she was angry. As an assassin she was sorely outclassed, but Yasmin remembered her training. She swallowed, then turned around to face him. The pretty smiling face of the Mockingbird did nothing to soften his steel. This was no soft-hearted prince who would spare her. This was a man who could, and _would _kill anyone to protect his interests, whatever they were. When she spoke, she let her fear be heard in the tremor of her voice, and she used the truth as a sheath for the dagger of her lies.

“My birth family is gone,” she said. “And the Gonerils do not treat their Almyran servants well. Why _wouldn’t _I be here?”

“Your _birth_ family. You have adoptive family, then?” He picked up on that point shrewdly.

“I… I left her at Fódlan’s Throat. M-my mother gave me her blessings to go.” This was a half-truth. Gulshan had seen her off at the docks, but in her mind she conjured up the image of her adoptive mother waving to her from the mountaintops. She hoped he would come to the conclusion that her mother was a Goneril servant who wanted her daughter to escape that life.

The Mockingbird considered her for a long moment, then hummed under his breath. “Another Almyran child soldier, huh. No, don’t deny it. I can tell you’re a fighter. There’s a boy like you working as Lady Rhea’s servant up there.”

“Like… me?”

“Oh, sure. I’d tell him to come down here to escape the prejudice, but he seems to have some of the knights looking out for him.” He shrugged, then raised a well-manicured brow at her. “You, though. You wouldn’t be content sweeping floors, would you? I think you’ve gotten a taste for _adventure_.”

Yasmin nodded for him to go on.

“Whenever you’re interested, come find my men.” He tilted his head toward the makeshift headquarters where he held most of his business meetings. “Run a few errands for us, and if we like your work, you can move up the ranks. And call me Yuri, by the way. Not whatever nickname is floating around now.”

Yasmin considered inventing an alias, but her name was common enough among Almyrans, and it wasn’t as if she had any sort of identity here. “I’m Yasmin. I’ll… think about it.”

“Take your time. I’ll have to have a chat with old Farhan about reporting in more regularly. Would’ve been a shame to hurt one of his accidentally… Well, any questions?”

Oh, she had a _million_ questions, but none she could ask the fearsome Mockingbird, Lord of the Underworld! She would’ve said none, but the look on her face must have given her away already. Yasmin bit her lip, then slowly brought out the book she had been examining before.

“Um… what is happening in this picture?”

Yuri picked up the book and brought it closer. He squinted. He turned it upside down. “His arm is… no, his leg is… _Huh_.”

* * *

It was a while before she could sneak away with confidence. The Abyssians were kind, but it was understandably hard for them to trust newcomers and outsiders. Yasmin was watched constantly after she became _seen_ by the Wolves. Yuri’s gang were everywhere. They oversaw all the black market dealings and _dealt with_ anyone they thought would betray them. In the permanent way.

The first time Yasmin slipped out, she was tailed. She pretended not to notice and instead went hunting for small game. Fresh meat was something of a luxury underground, so she hoped this would lessen their suspicions. After all, the people Yuri trusted could leave for days or weeks or even longer without anyone following.

She slipped out a few more times, never heading toward Airmid Falls. Hunting was the usual excuse, though once in a while she would take coin with her into town to buy goods for those Abyssians who couldn’t leave.

Eventually, she was only tailed halfway down the mountain when she went into town. When she camped outside overnight, her follower left her alone, perhaps content by now that she could hide herself well enough. She was able to send short coded messages to Claude, but hadn’t been able to report back for over a month.

It was evening by the time she slid into the teahouse through the lab window, the woman who had been sent to tail her having retreated hours ago. Yasmin walked soundlessly across the hall to Claude’s living quarters. A flickering light was visible from under the door. She rapped out their code and slipped inside just as Claude turned around.

And he was beaming.

He stood up, and his arms were open so wide, and his smile was so warm.

“Sister!” he called her as she clung to his neck.

He didn’t let go of her even when he started digging through the mess of his belongings. Yasmin’s eyes were shut too tightly to see what he was doing, but eventually she heard the whistle of a kettle and smelled tea brewing.

When she let go, the words rushed out like a wave. “I have so much to tell you about the people in the caverns, and the Church, and Fódlan’s goddess is the Starseed, and– and the archbishop controls this gang that controls the black market they’re all connected!”

“That can wait,” he said.

“No, no it can’t! There’s a whole city, there’s a library! Lost technology! Ancient guardian automatons! You have to listen–”

She was gently pushed to sit on the couch and a cup of tea was shoved into her hands. Plain black tea, by the smell of it. Claude poured a floral syrup into it, and suddenly the whole room bloomed with the scent of jasmine.

“Drink first. You can tell me in the morning.”

Obediently, she took a sip. The jasmine syrup was something rare, something nostalgic. He must have had it imported, but why bring it out now?

As she was pondering this, her brother came to sit beside her. He combed her hair, braided it and pulled it into a bun. Then he brought out a small box with a hair ornament inside – strings of dried jasmine that he clipped to her braid.

It wasn’t that braiding each other’s hair was strange, but this was a bit much. Yasmin set down her empty cup and confronted him about it. “What’s going on?”

But Claude just smiled and reached back into the box. “Gulshan and I wanted to give you these,” he said, and presented her with two handmade tassels for her belt. “Happy birthday.”

She cried. There was no stopping it. She clutched his shoulders and cried. It was so childish and embarrassing, but being here with Claude - _Khalid_ like this? For Yasmin, born in the saddle, home had always been the people, not the places. This felt like coming home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will get back to Dimitri, and then… the empire!!
> 
> Oh shit guys, we’ve upgraded from Europe-in-a-blender to Eurasia-in-a-blender. It’s only a matter of time before… the world… becomes… a smoothie!
> 
> Nah, just kidding. I’d love to smash the whole world into a pulp, but there will probably only be hints of it here and there.
> 
> Re: Almyra, I was asked about it in the comments on the previous chapter. To reiterate, the headcanon here, for the most part, is an alternate history where the Muslim conquest of Persia failed and Arab influences/people got assimilated into a Persian-dominant culture. Plus a bunch of Central Asia stuff, and some dabs of South Asia (though that mostly comes from an eastern neighbor) because the Mughal Empire was a thing and Claude’s gotta get his spices from somewhere. So this Persian-ish empire is still going strong as a multi-ethnic, multi-religion, multi-language trading hub kind of deal. There are many very mobile nomadic tribes riding horses and wyverns that can easily carry goods, and their navy is pretty impressive too. It’s an empire built by various tribes coming together to protect their trade interests. That’s part of why they’re so pissed at Fodlan’s closed border – they used to trade freely with Nabatean-controlled ancient Fodlan, but now they’re losing out on SO much business having this whole landmass blocked off! Reeeee! How many islands y’all gonna make them hop just to get some Dagdan coffee?! The people of Fodlan are betrayers and cowards to hide behind their walls like that.
> 
> Anyway, most of the religious traditions are non-exclusive, so there’s a LOT of syncretism going on – people belonging to more than one faith or picking and choosing beliefs of multiple faiths to craft their own folk religions is quite normal. I feel like this is in line with Claude’s views on religion. He grew up seeing many different belief systems but belonging to none, because none were ever forced on him. As someone who’s always been considered an outsider even in his homeland, he had no incentive to choose one faith at the exclusion of others. I mean, his parents are of different faiths and they love each other very much, so it would be pretty shitty for them to be like, “kid, you’re gonna have the same religion as me, screw your other parent”. He’ll partake in the celebrations and things like meditation as cultural practices, though. It’s a very natural sort of atheism born out of having the luxury to choose and the luxury to study them from an outsider's scholarly perspective. (In contrast, I see Edelgard’s atheism as the angry lashing out kind that happens when people have just escaped from fundamentalist groups that have harmed them. On some level, they can’t imagine there could be good in any religion because it has only ever brought them pain. That’s more of an anti-theism... but anyway, we'll explore more Eagles stuff soon.)
> 
> Also, I was gonna do an OVER 9000!!! hits celebration, but omg before I could post this chapter it suddenly skyrocketed to **OVER 10,000!!!!!!! DRABBLES FOR ALL~~~** …because it’s the only thing I can offer. I mean, I’d invite you guys over for tea and cookies, but that’s kinda sorta… impossible? (Everyone come cram into an internet stranger’s apartment during a global pandemic, yes please! I will brew you a pot of pine needles and totally not kidnap you or anything. I promise I have no mafia connections.)
> 
> 11/14 is also the one year anniversary of this fic!!!!! So it’s a celebration of that, too.
> 
> Any characters, any pairings, gen is fine too. I can do fluff, angst, crack, ~worldbuilding~, or… idk weird/mediocre smut? Seriously though, leave a prompt in a comment or DM or something and I’ll send some words your way. :)
> 
> Thank you all so much for continuing to be here on this little tea and espionage journey with me! Ferdie’s coming soon – there will be more tea!! 🍵☕


	16. Morfis Mint

Mere days after the Blue Lions finished their latest mission, before Sylvain had even returned, Dimitri and Professor Byleth were once again dragged into a troublesome situation. They came back to find the monastery in a state of rising panic over rumors of students and civilians being attacked at night. Soon after, it was suspected that Flayn had become the latest victim.

While chasing after a suspicious figure, they stumbled across one of the monastery’s many secret passageways. Of course everyone knew Garreg Mach was full of these, and the best known ones had even become popular shortcuts or secluded make-out spots. But this one didn’t just connect buildings or end in a secret chamber. It led deep underground, into the very mountain itself.

Accompanied by the other house leaders and a few friends, they chased the figure into the Abyss, met the Ashen Wolves who lived there, fought nightmarish… _creatures_ that brought back too many memories of Miklan…

And they still didn’t find Flayn.

Yuri set his people to the task with no luck. While Dimitri didn’t fully trust the man, the only thing he could be sure of was that the Abyssians had to cooperate with the Church unless they wanted to be invaded and flushed out like a den of rats. They coexisted in a precarious balance that required staying in the Archbishop’s favor, and that obviously included obeying Seteth. There was a chance that Flayn had ended up in Abyss, but it would not be the Ashen Wolves who took her there.

These thoughts, and his worry for Flayn, crowded to the forefront of Dimitri’s mind even as he tried to focus on his own research. He was in the library late at night again, going through perhaps the last of the relevant records available to him. A few days ago, he had finally stumbled across the donation records from Lord Arundel.

Though neither blood-related nor particularly close, Lord Arundel was still his uncle and the only living relative connecting him to Edelgard. It felt like a betrayal, yet his blood sang in his veins as if he were in battle. Finally, he had a lead.

Dimitri came to the end of the record book before him. He shut it with a decisive thump, having found nothing else. But that was fine as long as he had the one lead. When he looked up, he saw Lysithea deep in her own studies and thought he ought to tell her that he wouldn’t be coming to the library quite so often anymore. She seemed troubled though, and it had been a long time since she’d turned a page. The plate of pastries between them was mostly untouched.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

Lysithea’s head shot up. Her sharp eyes looked him over, and Dimitri didn’t know what she was searching for, but a moment later the tension left her body with a huff. “Always,” she said. “My mind’s always busy. Just… more than usual lately.”

“Is it something I can help with?”

She shook her head. “You already brought me cake, that’s more than enough! Unless… well, you tell me your problems and I’ll tell you mine. But you have to promise not to do anything rash, okay?”

Dimitri’s breath caught in his throat. It sounded very serious, if Lysithea feared he would intervene upon hearing it. And in these dangerous times too, when some crazed “reaper” was running around attacking lone students, and Lysithea with her late night study habits would be a prime target. He didn’t wish to burden her with his own matters, but at the same time, it seemed confiding in her was the only way to gain her trust and perhaps keep her safe.

“All right, I’ll accept those terms.” He said so, but willingly showing vulnerabilities was something that had been trained out of him long ago. A prince must be strong for his people, no matter how troubled his heart. “Ah… where to begin?”

“You don’t have to tell me state secrets or anything.”

“R-right. Well, the truth is I haven’t been studying, per se. I’ve been looking in the records for information, and I’ve found what I need. The next step is to take action, so I… I don’t think I’ll be coming to the library quite so often after this.”

“It was pretty obvious you weren’t doing schoolwork.” Lysithea didn’t voice any speculation on what information Dimitri had been seeking, but she was bright enough to guess that it had to do with Kingdom politics. She probably knew it was about Duscur.

“Deception is not a strength of mine,” he admitted. “And you?”

Her eyes darted to down to her books, mostly magical theory with some anatomy and crestology mixed in. “To be honest, I haven’t always done schoolwork either.”

“Your studies are much more advanced than the curriculum. It still counts as schoolwork, doesn’t it? We are in the honors class, after all. We’re allowed more choice in independent studies.”

“Well, yes, but… Like you, I’ve been looking for information, and I think I’ve found where I need to be to get more. I _have _to do this. For myself. For my family. I just don’t know if my friends will understand.”

“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t they?”

The Golden Deer were all so close, from what Dimitri had seen. Lorenz may only be the son of a count, but perhaps his slightly lower status made his housemates feel closer to him in that way. They certainly had no trouble treating him as an equal, which was something Dimitri’s housemates struggled to do. Edelgard, too, was often placed on a pedestal and treated as untouchable.

They were so close, so why would Lysithea need to give that up?

Lysithea explained in a roundabout way. “Linhardt finally got off his lazy ass to put in the transfer forms, did you hear? He’ll be a Golden Deer by next month. I’m going to transfer too… to the Black Eagles.”

In that moment, he saw himself in her. He saw the desire for revenge. Lysithea wasn’t merely a genius. She worked harder than most anyone to hone her natural gifts, and it must have been for an important reason. Perhaps it was for her family. Whenever she spoke of them, it was with a fierce protectiveness, a willingness to tear down heaven and earth to keep them from harm. Whatever it was, it put a dangerous spark in her eyes.

Dimitri didn’t know the details of it, but he didn’t question her further.

* * *

That beast… The grotesque black form that had grown out of Miklan…

Claude’s thoughts keep going back to that puzzle. After he saw Sylvain back to the Central Church’s territory, he took off for Derdriu and the Riegan libraries to research the Heroes’ Relics and any connections they might have to appearances of monsters. There was the Sword of the Creator as well, and having now seen it in battle, he wondered if it would be worth it to pursue Byleth as an ally to gain access to its power beyond compare.

As expected, the approved histories were scrubbed clean. There were vague mentions of “beasts”, “minions of Nemesis” and “creatures of darkness” – pretty standard tales found in any culture. As far as official accounts went, the relics were merely the holy instruments used to slay them.

“But where have I heard that before? Humans cursed to wander the land in beast form…?”

He slid into his grandfather’s room, hoping to unearth something in his private collection. All the books there were poetry, and while those were undoubtedly the sources he used for sending coded messages, any information Claude might glean from them would take too much time and effort to extract.

Then another thought struck him – the key to the vault! Riegan had a relic too. There wouldn’t be any harm in taking a closer look, would there? After all, Claude was the only person left who could use it.

He just managed to slip the key into his pocket when the door creaked open.

Duke Riegan looked completely unsurprised to see Claude in his chambers. “I thought it was too good to be true that you would come to see me without stating a reason. Remember, my men may obey you, but only by my command. Every report they give you, I receive a copy.”

“Spying on your own beloved grandson? You wound me, sir.”

His grandfather glanced at him with a knowing look, but proceeded to pick up some files on his desk as if nothing were the matter. “Judith is in town,” he said pleasantly. “You might as well come with me to see her.”

“Sure, I’ve always got time for Aunt Judith.”

“Come, then. And… I trust you’ll put the bow back in place once you’re done prodding at it? Don’t even try removing it from the castle grounds.”

“Bow? What bow?” Damn, the old man was sharp.

They had a nice casual lunch with Judith in the gardens, watching the first falling leaves drift on the breeze. The autumn fruits were ripening nicely, promising plenty of hot spiced wine to last through the winter. It was around this time last year that Claude had first met Judith. She was one of the only people in Fódlan who knew for sure that he was the son of Tiana and not Godfrey, having been close friends with them both since childhood.

Duke Riegan insisted, as he always did whenever Judith visited, that she allow him to adopt her and join their two ailing houses. Judith, as always, refused.

“Oswald,” she chastised. “You know Gloucester would have a raging fit if you tried to push that through the Roundtable.”

“And what would he do about it? I’m sorry, I seem to have run out of sons to kill.”

“You still have a _grandson_, and me as well. I’d rather not have to deal with his assassination attempts on top of everything. Don’t you agree, Claude?”

“No assassinations is always best!” he chirped.

Immediately after, small disparate slivers of information linked together in his mind. Claude hastily lifted his wineglass to hide any lapses in his expression.

Gloucester’s assassination attempts on House Riegan, Godfrey’s death on a trip to see the count… The merchants who accompanied him – Raphael’s parents… Everyone who was in the know suspected Count Gloucester to be behind the incident, but they lacked the evidence to call him out because it was clearly a monstrous beast that attacked the caravan. There were claw marks on the wood that were too large to be the work of regular wolves, and the merchants who traveled that road confirmed that beast attacks were unfortunately quite common. A man couldn’t so simply _plan_ a beast attack – those monsters couldn’t be tamed – or, at least, such a talent should be ruled out for Gloucester.

…But beasts could be _made_.

Claude had seen it with his own eyes. All that was needed was a human sacrifice… and a Heroes’ Relic. Thyrsus. A staff that featured so prominently in the region’s culture that maidens carried replicas of it at festivals. A few vines wrapped around the real thing and it would be indistinguishable from the fakes.

There was no hard proof that Gloucester had done just that, merely that it was possible. Could it be? Could the strange black beasts that plagued Fódlan truly have been human once upon a time? The tales of people cursed into beast form came to mind again, and this time Claude remembered where he’d heard them most often.

It had been along the route from Ordelia to southern Goneril. That stretch of land, the hills east of Myrddin. It was less than a year ago, yet that time seemed so distant now. He’d traveled from Derdriu south along the river all the way to Ordelia by the border and then gone east until he came to the ports at the southernmost edge of Goneril lands. If the stories held any truth…

“Something you’d like to share?” his grandfather asked.

Claude thought he’d been hiding his racing thoughts well enough behind the guise of enjoying the wine, but apparently not. He considered sharing his suspicions, but they were all so preliminary. In the end, he shrugged and flashed a charming smile. “Ah, well, whatever I get up to, I’m sure you’ll receive a copy of the report.”

* * *

The next time Claude made his way to the monastery, it was already Wyvern Moon. The weather was getting colder. When Luca’s grandmother came down with a cough, Claude waved him off to care for her and promised to cover the sales at Garreg Mach. It had been a while since he’d been up that way as a merchant, and he went with a wealth of new knowledge that he was still trying to figure out how to slot into his plans.

The spy he sent to pose as a guard for Lord Kleiman had reported that the conditions were dire in the Duscurian camps. This was an entire nation that had been subjugated and forced into prison labor conditions for years now. They weren’t holding on well. According to Faerghan tradition, Dimitri couldn’t be crowned until his twentieth birthday, more than two years away. If Claude wanted to gain anything from freeing Duscur, he had to do it soon, before the population sank to such low levels that they couldn’t lend any support in return. Before Kleiman and the other western lords’ treachery came to fruition and plunged the continent into war.

On top of that, Yasmin came back from what should have been a simple survey of the layout of the land with fantastical stories of underground cities and secret networks of black market traders controlled by the _Archbishop_ of all people. The woman looked so serene when she was giving sermons. It was hard to imagine that she could be the sort of ruthless tyrant the Western Church painted her as, though there must be _some _grain of truth to such persistent rumors.

Someday, Claude would love to be able to have tea with Lady Rhea as an ambassador from the outside world, entreating Fódlan to reconnect with the peoples beyond its walls… But he needed more of everything first. More power, more social standing, more supporters. An army at his back strong enough to rival the Knights of Seiros, preferably. If he went to her as he was now, the chances of her making him conveniently disappear were too great.

Continued creeping it was, then.

Before he even got into the market, he heard the knights patrolling the main road warning travelers to be careful of a hidden attacker. “Don’t stay past dark, and avoid being alone if you can,” one of them said. He was holding a poster with two sketches – one of an aristocratic-looking young man wearing a white mask around his eyes, and another of a figure fully clad in dark armor with a distinctive skull helmet. “This man’s been lurking around these parts at night. His charges include assault and kidnapping.”

“Students from the Officers Academy confronted him and chased him off, but he could still be around,” another guard added.

Business was slower than usual because of it. Some of the civilians who lived around the monastery were too frightened to leave their homes even during the day, and all the knights being on high alert meant they had less time to browse the marketplace, too. Even so, it wasn’t long before he was spotted and approached by a familiar face.

“My head is aching something fierce!” Professor Manuela proclaimed. She stomped to the seating area behind the stall and sat slumped over, arms and torso sprawling across the table. “What have you got for that?”

Claude looked around to see what he could scrounge up. Today he was advertising the most interesting finds among the latest shipment that he’d just picked up from Derdriu. Among those was a hardier type of green tea, leaves rolled into pellets to better withstand aging and travel. His portable kettle had been set up and was currently full of this tea, freshly boiled and ready to give out as samples.

It was all the rage now, or so Claude had been told in a letter from his procurer. Previously, it had been dismissed for its unconventional appearance and left for other countries to buy. Demand for it increased day by day once Almyran nobles got a taste for it, and Almyran and Morfis traders were now fighting each other to secure shipping deals from the eastern markets. Within the shipment was also a small recipe book written in the Morfis script, detailing many of their common tea preparations.

Claude thought of this now because of one recipe in particular – mint tea. There was a ritual for it which Claude couldn’t remember in detail. Nevertheless, mint would help Manuela with her headache, and it was easier than preparing something completely different just for her. He wasn’t running a café, after all.

“A cup of mint tea, perhaps? It’ll help with pain and nausea.”

Manuela’s moaning quieted for a moment as she considered what he said. “You pass.”

“I didn’t realize it was a test,” Claude said. He moved to prepare the fresh mint leaves. That is, he sacrificed one of the poor potted herbs he’d just purchased from the florist.

“Hmph. I’ve seen my share of pretty things like you get tricked into thinking they’re talented just because everyone praises them. Farm girls move to Enbarr in droves thinking they can make it in the opera with looks and slimy patrons in place of proper training. Bright-eyed little wannabe-doctors start believing they’re the goddess’ gift to medicine when their patients tell them, ‘I’m healed just by your presence!’ Those ass-kissers only want to get into your pants, Claude, mark my words!”

“Eh… Well, most of my teas are blended for taste, not medicinal benefits. Don’t worry, I have no delusions of being either a doctor or a diva.”

The mint went straight into the boiling water along with a heaping scoop of sugar. While the fragrant steam wafted out of the kettle, he set down an empty cup in front of Manuela, between her outstretched arms.

Claude had gotten to know a bit more about Professor Manuela through working with the other professors. She came over to flirt with Byleth and bicker with Hanneman. Her personality actually reminded him of Judith, somewhat. Like a sassy aunt. Despite her freewheeling appearance, Manuela was capable as a mentor, and she had a soft spot for youths who came from disadvantaged or unconventional backgrounds. She had many admirers and informal students of healing among the knights and clergy, so it wasn’t strange that she would see Claude as, perhaps, “adoptable” in this way since she knew he already had some skill in herbalism. But it was such a curious turn of events that she would seek him out in _this_ state. Usually it was Byleth she went to for pouring out her woes, probably because his face was so blank, and that could be construed as nonjudgmental.

Claude couldn’t help himself from asking, “So, what brought this on? Hangover? Romantic troubles?”

“A concussion!” she wailed. “I treated that man with respect, sat with him at staff meetings without ever saying a word about his stupid mask, and this is how he repaid me – stabbed me in the gut and smashed my skull!”

“You seem pretty spirited for someone who’s nearly had their head cracked open… But who would do such a thing?”

“Oh, it’s that man everyone’s all up in arms about. The _Death Knight_, pah! Turns out he was one of our very own fencing instructors. I always knew he wasn’t all there in the mind, if you know what I mean. Jeritza von Hrym, accepted on personal recommendation of excellence from Lord Volkhard von Arundel, Regent of the Empire,” she recited mockingly. “Now, I respect Lady Rhea as much as anyone, but knowing we let that creep have daily access to the students just because the nobles would make a fuss otherwise makes my skin crawl.”

Ah, she was using the local tea merchant as a replacement for a bartender. She probably wished she were in a tavern, but day drinking was unacceptable in the monastery, even for someone as liberal as Manuela. …And concussions and alcohol don’t mix.

Claude nodded along and commiserated. “Goes to show connections really can get you anywhere in this world. Even regardless of murderous tendencies, huh. That’s a – well, no, it’s not a surprise.”

Manuela was being very outspoken about her complaints, so it was no wonder they were overheard. Two of her students bustled over at the sound of her voice. One he recognized as the princess’ retainer. The other was Lorenz’s friend, the son of Duke Aegir.

Ferdinand, as he very enthusiastically introduced himself, began to simultaneously fuss over his professor’s well-being and apologize for the ‘egregious behavior of Sir Hrym, hardly befitting his title!’

It was also Ferdinand who took it upon himself to introduce his companion Hubert von Vestra, an action that earned him a glare from Hubert. There was some enmity between them, clearly. Though, as soon as Hubert spoke, Claude thought it would be difficult to find someone, anyone, who got along with such a man. Hubert’s reputation had preceded him, and was so far accurate. He purposely presented himself in an immensely unpleasant manner.

“Charmed,” Hubert said, sounding anything but. His lip curled in disgust as if Claude were an insect to be stomped beneath his boots. “We’re here to retrieve our wayward professor. The nurses in the infirmary are… quite worried.”

Manuela attempted to wave them off. “I’m the chief physician, and I say I’m fine. Go enjoy your day, don’t worry about me.”

“But Professor,” Ferdinand protested, “It is the duty of a noble to keep promises, and I, Ferdinand von Aegir, have promised the nurses to assist and escort you in your time of need!”

Sensing there was no way out of this – not with Ferdinand’s eyes shining so earnestly in knightly devotion! – Manuela slowly pushed herself into sitting upright. “Fine, fine… More bed rest it is. But before I go, sit down and have tea with us.”

The tea had finished steeping and was cool enough to serve at this point. Claude brought over extra seats and cups for the students. He poured himself a cup as well, if only because he’d never tried this recipe before.

Manuela took in the mint aroma with a happy sigh.

Ferdinand, a tea aficionado like Lorenz, sampled his cup with much interest. “This is brewed in the Morfis style, isn’t it.”

“It is,” Claude said. “I’m surprised you know it. I’ve only recently come across the recipe myself.”

“Ah, perhaps you would not know. House Aegir is known for its imports. Our lands run along the southeastern coast of the Empire, directly across the sea from Morfis. Some of the smaller islands are disputed territory – unpleasant business, that. But one immutable benefit of such close proximity to our reclusive neighbors is that we get first pick of the tea. I consider myself very well-versed in the subject.”

He would have said more, but Hubert, somehow managing to look both bored and murderous, drawled out, “Oh, do shut up.” It seemed to take great restraint not to say anything more.

“Boys, you’re in public,” Manuela reminded them. “I did want to discuss something with you, Claude.”

“Sure, I’m all ears.”

Manuela was suddenly very serious. “The Battle of the Eagle and Lion is set for the end of this month. It’s a mock battle between the students, though you don’t need to know the details. But the thing is, each house is supposed to have had at least one practical assignment per month to prepare for it. Unfortunately, the Black Eagles missed theirs last month when I was… incapacitated. We’ve rescheduled something for this month instead. The timing will be tight, but possible, I think.”

“And you want to hire me to help out? Sounds fine. What is it, bandits again?”

She let out a weak chuckle. “Not this time…”

* * *

“We need to talk,” Sylvain said. He was waiting for Dimitri, leaning against the wall near the door to the prince’s room.

It sounded urgent, so Dimitri gave a curt nod and ushered his old friend into his room and the safety of its privacy ward.

“About Miklan?” he guessed once the door was closed.

“No.”

“Then… Flayn?”

“About Claude. Claude von Riegan.”

This was a shock to Dimitri, whose mind was already muddled from having just brushed past Claude moments ago. He’d been coming back to the dorms when Claude pulled him aside. Instinctively, Dimitri had reached up to intercept a possible assailant, only to have a note passed directly into his hand.

Claude pressed in close, leaning up to whisper into Dimitri’s ear, “I’m going into the Empire.”

Concern welled up in his breast, along with an urge to tell Claude not to risk himself. Such unnecessary, irrational feelings… Yet it was so difficult to squash them even knowing Claude for who he truly was. If there was one word he would use now to describe this man, it was _capable_. Claude was so multi-talented he could do damn near anything. He could _be_ damn near anyone, flipping from merchant to alchemist to mercenary to intelligence agent without batting an eye. He didn’t need Dimitri’s worry.

When Dimitri didn’t immediately respond, Claude began pulling back. It was then that he reacted, tugging Claude back in. He said only one word, the culmination of his own research, trusting that Claude would understand.

“Arundel.”

Then they parted. They continued walking their separate paths like nothing had happened. No one had been around to see, he’d thought. He hadn’t considered that Sylvain might be looking out from the dorm windows.

“Von Riegan?” he managed to reply. “I think you’re mistaken.”

True, Claude was Duke Riegan’s man. Perhaps he was even a member of the Riegan family, but he was illegitimate and could not take the name.

“I think I’m not,” Sylvain said. He’d been less of a flirt since he got back from taking the news to his father, but now he was deathly serious. “Derdriu is buzzing with rumors about him, the ambitious young Riegan, taking over the family’s businesses. _All_ the family’s businesses, the governing of Leicester included. Isn’t it strange, that a supposed bastard would be given the right to seek an alliance with you on his own? Seems to me like Duke Riegan hasn’t given up on legitimating his chosen heir after all.”

“And how have you come to sift the truth out of these rumors?”

“Your Highness, you don’t think I buy cologne from Derdriu just because I like the scent, do you?”

If he was implying what he was implying… “Then you don’t buy lipsticks from Adrestia to give to girls?”

“Of course I give them to girls. What use would I have for them otherwise? But I _buy_ them, among other things, because that particular trader has very loose lips.”

Dimitri let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His shoulders slumped as he sat down on the bed, thoughts whirling too fast for anything to properly sink in. Sylvain sat down beside him, and they both stared at the plain wall in front of them.

“You _did_ at least know he was Duke Riegan’s grandson before you decided to work with him, yeah?”

“It wasn’t _confirmed_. I knew he worked for House Riegan, and that he had ties to Leicester nobility judging from the way he interacted with the Golden Deer. I suppose if I had known there were other options to get the information I needed, I would not have been so eager to accept his proposal.”

After that admission, there were awkward moments where neither knew what to say to move forward. It was Sylvain who recovered first. Dimitri felt a hand land on his shoulder. He looked over at Sylvain then, and it felt like truly seeing him for the first time in years. With a crooked smile that didn't match the sorrow in his eyes, Sylvain said, “You and Felix always played Loog and Kyphon. Neither of them were known for their tactics. Someone had to be Pan.”

Sylvain had always been their big brother as much as Glenn had. When they were younger, he had always been the one to shoulder whatever burdens he could for them, always taking the blame upon himself when their roughhousing disturbed the adults or when Felix insulted someone. He would say, “Sorry, I wasn’t watching them properly.” He was their Pan, always cleaning up their messes.

Somehow, Dimitri had forgotten how much he’d been doted on. He’d thought things had changed between them, that because Felix now hated him, Sylvain did too, but was just too diplomatic to show it. He’d thought, because Felix and Ingrid were always telling him it was hopeless to keep fixating on Duscur, that Sylvain was of the same opinion. After all, it wasn’t as if Sylvain gave any indication that he wanted to help.

Perhaps he sensed this confusion, because the next thing he said was, “I’m sorry, I should have told you what I was doing. That’s the first rule of intelligence gathering, isn’t it? Gotta report back to the boss man. But here I’ve been, just hoarding all this info and trying to make sense of it by myself… It hasn’t gotten me very far.”

It meant a lot that Sylvain called him the ‘boss’ when Dimitri’s coronation wasn’t guaranteed. Some of the lords wanted Rufus to stay on and become king instead, since his views were more conventional than Dimitri’s. Others wanted to overthrow the Blaiddyd clan and put an western lord on the throne. It meant a lot for Sylvain to profess his loyalty, when just mere moments ago he’d been prepared for Felix and Sylvain to both abandon him at some point.

“I’m sorry too,” he said. “I shouldn’t have doubted you without reason.”

Sylvain nodded, apology accepted. “I’m not saying I can compete with Riegan’s resources, but it’s best not to trust a foreign power too much. If Claude keeps gaining influence through Faerghus, Your Highness might end up unwittingly backing him in a coup against Gloucester and Goneril. The Alliance might blame the Kingdom for meddling in their affairs. They might claim we’re trying to conquer them again.”

“I had not considered that.” Dimitri lowered his gaze. His brows furrowed in contemplation. “In truth, I haven’t thought much on the politics of other nations beyond our direct dealings with them. You’re probably correct, Sylvain, but I think that means the opposite is true as well. If a civil war were to erupt in Faerghus, House Riegan has more or less committed to supporting me. Claude was… testing me… when we first met. I don’t know why or how, but it seems he’s on our side.”

“By test I can only assume he tried to seduce you. And you trust him even after that?” Sylvain let out a short laugh. “It almost sounds like you still have feelings for him.”

“I don’t know. Nothing would come of it, anyway. But he’s been kind to Dedue and the people of Duscur. He’s gone so far as to send his spies into the camps, and that’s more than anyone in any position of power has been willing to give us.”

Sylvain went silent for a moment. His shoulders tensed. Shortly after, he let out a sharp exhale and said, quietly, “I can believe it. He was kind to Sreng, too.”

Sreng? It seemed Sylvain wasn’t ready to expand on that, so Dimitri let it be. But speaking of Duscur, crumpled in his hand was the note that Claude had left. He’d intended to wait until he was alone to read it, but now things were different. Unfolding it, Dimitri saw a string of numbers and shorthand. It wasn’t a full-fledged code, which Dimitri wouldn’t have been able to read anyway, but it could have been a math formula or shopping list. No one would be able to decipher what it meant without some prior knowledge.

It was an accounting of the largest of Kleiman’s camps, stationed at the northern end of the Sacred Gwenhwyvar mountains that separated Duscur from Faerghus. Thousands of workers, women and children included. Hundreds of armed guards on three-hour shifts. The most damning of the numbers involved what was going in and out of the camps. Supplies went in, and ore came out. Hundreds – no, thousands more tons of iron ore were coming out of the region that wasn’t being reported to Fhirdiad. They were stripping the mines as quickly as they could without care for the number of deaths.

That much iron production with such a hurried schedule could only mean preparations for warfare. They would have no need to hide it if it were for public works projects. If it was true, this was clear evidence of an impending violent conflict brewing right underneath their noses, something bigger and more organized than all the previous rebellions that had sprung up since King Lambert’s passing.

“This is what’s happening in Duscur’s mining camps, according to Claude. Population, conditions, output.”

Dimitri passed the note to Sylvain, whose eyes flew quickly over the numbers. After a while, a hysterical sort of laughter escaped as he said, “We’re fucked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get so much fic out, but adulting got in the way of my plans. I’ve just been passing out after work for the past few weeks, and like… waking up at 2am to make tiramisu for my D&D group. Kids, don’t become a useless adult like me. 
> 
> (I will get more stuff out sooooon~ I promise!)


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